


Scav Hunt

by zubeneschamali



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: College!AU, M/M, Rivals to Lovers, University of Chicago
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-12
Updated: 2018-05-12
Packaged: 2019-05-05 14:20:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,224
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14620488
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zubeneschamali/pseuds/zubeneschamali
Summary: The University of Chicago's annual Scavenger Hunt is legendary for its eclectic and hard-to-obtain items (e.g., one thousand origami cranes, a trebuchet launching a pineapple over a statue, an interpretive dance of the Thirty Years' War) and for the extremes that people will go to over a long weekend to find them. Starting from rival teams and at odds with each other, Jared and Jensen must work together to defeat a common enemy and maybe end up winning something more than a game.





	1. The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Reposting an old Big Bang in honor of this year's Scav Hunt. Thanks to dugindeep, kasman, and wildrosesings for their alpha and beta (and omega?) reading; y'all are awesome, and I really appreciated your input. Thanks to wendy and thehighwaywoman for organizing spn_j2_bigbang and keeping us all on track. 
> 
> I was thrilled to work with little_jade, who has produced some wonderful art that complements the storyline perfectly and is really fun! I think the original post is gone (http://jadedworks.livejournal.com/2597.html), but I've included some of the pieces in the fic.
> 
> All of the items mentioned in the story were taken from actual past lists of the U of C Scavenger Hunt (http://scavhunt.uchicago.edu/). Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons may not entirely be a coincidence. 
> 
> And now, enjoy a rewind to the 1990s! (Soundtrack is at the end.)

  
  


Part 1: The Beginning

Wednesday, April 3, 1996  
3:03 P.M.  
C-Shop, Reynolds Club, University of Chicago

"Dude, Stewart Hall is going down this year."

Jensen looked up from his p-chem textbook at the skinny blond with the pierced eyebrow who'd slid into the opposite side of the booth. "How's that, Ethan? You gonna put something in their water supply so they sleep through the weekend?"

Ethan drew back. "No!" Then his face brightened. "That's a good idea, Jen. Got anything in there that would help?" He grabbed the edge of the textbook and started to pull it towards himself.

"No, I am not helping you poison an entire dorm," Jensen said loudly, drawing a few looks from other patrons of the C-Shop. The place was packed—on Wednesdays, milkshakes only cost a dollar—so there were plenty of people to look. He'd had to spread his books all over the table and make it look like multiple people were sitting there so he could have the space to himself.

"Dude! That's a terrible idea!" Ethan pushed the heavy book back at him and lowered his voice. "It wouldn't have to be the whole dorm, anyway."

"Yeah, it would," Jensen sighed. "Besides, I'm not doing it this year. I'm taking the MCAT in July, which means after classes are done I have about a month to study. I gotta get a head start."

"You're going to ace that test whether you study or not. You're the one always breaking the curve. You're the reason the rest of the pre-meds steal the course readings from reserve at Crerar." Ethan leaned closer. "It's one weekend, man. And we can do it this year, I know we can."

"That's what you said last year." Jensen scrubbed his hand over his jaw. "And I have never had so much humiliation packed into one weekend."

"You weren't the one hurling your guts out all over the Midway," Ethan reminded him.

"No, I was the one playing Strip Go Fish in the middle of the goddamned ballroom," Jensen shot back. "And we didn't even win. We didn't even get fourth place out of five teams."

"You won something else out of that, as I recall." Ethan waggled his eyebrows, the small silver ring bobbing up and down.

Jensen remembered the appreciative looks from the student judge as he ended up in only boxer briefs and one sock, and the even more appreciative response the following night in Jensen's dorm room. "Yeah, I guess that worked out," he grudgingly admitted.

"See! And this year it'll be even better, because all of Lakeview is going in as one team."

Jensen raised his eyebrows. "All eight houses?"

"Yep. One dorm, six hundred and fifty students. Plus the losers like you and Nicole who've moved out. Stewart only has a hundred and fifty. They don't stand a chance."

Jensen gave his friend a glare for the "loser" comment. "Yeah, but Stewart's been winning for years. They know how to organize, they have alums they can call on, hell, they have Resident Heads who are willing to cough up their own money."

"Yeah, I know. They're like the goddamn Yankees. They win all the freakin' time." Ethan leaned forward on his elbows. "I hate the Yankees, Jensen. Help me beat the Yankees. Please."

"You got six hundred and fifty people," Jensen said, raising one hand with his palm up. "You don't need me."

"Dude, you were awesome last year. And not just 'cause you were willing to play Strip Go Fish. You were, like, non-stop the entire weekend, running all over town, calling up your dad and your brother and getting them to get shit for us."

"Oh, I get it now." Jensen narrowed his eyes. "You just want me for my connections."

"No, I want you to be the captain," Ethan replied, suddenly going serious.

Jensen shook his head firmly. "No way. I'm not doing that if you paid me."

"But you're so organized. And you can get people to do things just by glaring at them. It's like a superpower."

"Then why isn't it working now?" Jensen asked, folding his arms over his chest and giving Ethan a hard look.

"I was your roommate for a year. I built up immunity." Ethan waved a hand. "Okay, I wanted to be captain anyway. How about second in command?"

"Who's doing the road trip?" Jensen asked.

"Not you," Ethan quickly replied. "You're too awesome to risk getting arrested in Kentucky or South Dakota or wherever. I got Mitch lined up for the road trip."

"Mitch is the one who got arrested!" Jensen protested, his voice rising until people were looking at them again.

Ethan pointed at him. "And who got him out of it? Your dad. Or a friend of your dad, or whatever. You need to be here, Jen."

"Yeah, all right." He didn't fancy the idea of driving hundreds or thousands of miles within a few days' time with a carful of crazy people, anyway. Then he frowned. "Wait, I didn't just agree to this, did I?"

Ethan was smirking. "Afraid so." He pointed his thumb at his chest. "I am going to be an awesome lawyer."

"If you ever learn how to dress yourself," Jensen returned, eyeing the mismatched layers of flannel shirts and henleys.

"Shut up," Ethan cleverly retorted, and Jensen smirked. Ethan rolled his eyes. "Anyway. First meeting is tomorrow night in the Hartshorne common room. It's the biggest one in the dorm, and I hope we're gonna need it. Seven o'clock, don't be late." He reached out, wrist cocked like he wanted to arm wrestle. "We're gonna kick their asses."

"Better believe it," Jensen returned, clasping Ethan's hand and giving it a shake.

Ethan grinned before sliding out of the booth and bounding away.

Jensen promptly put his head down on his textbook. What was he thinking? It wasn't just a weekend, it was weeks of preparation and then it was four days of non-stop insanity and then at least two days to fully recover. He was going to have to do a physics problem set in advance, plus the philosophy paper that was due the following week, and then there was the Portuguese midterm sixth week, and why the hell had he put off his language requirement till junior year, anyway?

He groaned into the pages of his p-chem book. He was so going to regret this.

  


Saturday, April 6, 1996  
8:13 P.M.  
Medici Restaurant

"So what's this Scav Hunt thing that they were talking about at the meeting yesterday?" Jared popped a French fry into his mouth. "It seems like kind of a big deal."

"Totally." Across the scarred, knife-carved table, Kevin, his dorm neighbor and partner-in-crime at the newspaper, slurped at his strawberry shake. "It's legendary. People have heard about it all over the world."

Jared raised his eyebrows. "Really?"

"Really." When Jared continued to look at him, Kevin shrugged one brawny shoulder. "Okay, so maybe they've heard of it in the places where there are U of C alums. Which is, like, everywhere, so you get my point."

"So what, there's lots of obscure items to find?"

"Beyond obscure. Like, impossible. And yet people find them." Kevin leaned forward. "Last year there was one where you had to bring in a National Guard detachment, at least ten guys in fatigues, in one of their armored personnel things."

Jared blinked. "Wow. And someone did that?"

"Fucking Stewart Hall did that." Kevin grimaced. "They get into it every year because they have this reputation to uphold, and when you put that many U of Cers together, someone knows or is related to someone who can get just about anything. So someone's dad knew someone who was a big deal in the National Guard, and they made it happen."

"So there was a tank here? On campus?"

"It was awesome." Kevin rested his bearded chin on his hand. "Not as awesome as seeing Ethan Newton puking all over the Midway, but it was still awesome."

"I'm afraid to ask." Jared grabbed another couple of fries.

"Part of the Hunt is the Scav Olympics, basically stupid people tricks." Kevin took another sip from his shake. "Last year, whoever ate the most raw habañeros got their team ten points."

"Shit." Jared stared at him. "That sounds dangerous."

"Oh, they weren't stupid about it, they had gallons of milk standing by, and they brought a nurse over from the health center just in case." Kevin shook his head. "Still, so not my thing."

At that moment their waitress came by, bearing a huge pizza overflowing with toppings. "One garbage pizza, gentlemen," she said.

"Awesome," Jared said happily, rearranging the basket of fries and their water glasses so she could set it down on the table.

"Thank you!" she said with a cheerful smile and wink. "Is there anything else I can get you?"

Given the way she was looking from under her lashes at him, Jared got the feeling she'd be willing to get a lot for him if he asked, but he still hadn't figured the polite way to tell a flirting girl that she wasn't his type. "Um, no thanks, we're good."

When she was gone, Kevin raised his eyebrows. Before he could say anything, Jared rushed out, "So the Maroon's doing a team this year, right?" He wasn't out to anyone at college yet, and the middle of the popular Medici restaurant on a crowded Saturday night wasn't the time to find out if one of his closest friends here was cool with him being gay. It was a college campus, but it wasn't like a lot of people went around waving rainbow flags.

"Yeah, thus the meeting tomorrow afternoon." Kevin pulled a piece of pizza off the plate, winding up the strings of cheese with his fork. "I know they're looking for people to join up, and they've never entered a team before. It takes a lot of work, even with as many connections as us newspaper people are likely to have."

Jared took a bite of his pizza, making a face as the combination of ingredients hit his palate. One of everything had sounded better on the menu than it actually tasted. "It's just for a couple of days, right?"

"Ha-ha." Of all the Simpsons imitations Kevin did, Nelson's mocking laugh was his best. "Stewart Hall takes a month to prepare. They assign people to committees, they make lists of all of the people they know and where they work and what special skills they have, they prepare for possible road trips—"

"There's a road trip? Where?"

"You don't find out until Thursday when the list is released. It has to be within a thousand miles, but it can be anywhere. You have to do things like get a matchbook from a certain bar or a picture of your team in front of a famous monument or find out what graffiti is on the base of a statue somewhere. And you have seventy-two hours to do it."

"Sounds crazy." Jared took another bite of pizza and chewed thoughtfully. It wasn't so bad once you got used to it.

"I'm sure they'd love to have you, Jared. Physics major and all. Some of the items on the list are like fucked-up story problems. Besides, you know everybody in your dorm, and you've got a car, right? That's really useful."

"Yeah, I've noticed," he said glumly. With the university being in the middle of the South Side, it was rare for undergrads to have a car because of the limited parking, but it was highly prized as a means of getting to the much more interesting North Side. Which meant that anyone who did have a car found themselves the subject of much begging and pleading to ferry friends or friends of friends all over Chicago. Jared had joked after the fall quarter that he was going to put a meter in his car like a taxi. At least that got his friends to buy him dinner once in a while.

Still, this scavenger hunt thing sounded like fun, and if it turned out to be too crazy, he could always plead midterms and duck out of it. Besides, it might be a good way to get to know people on the newspaper staff and get them to see that he was more than just an overly-tall first-year. "Tomorrow afternoon, right?"

Kevin tilted his head to the side and gave him a look that said, I think you're nuts. Aloud he said, "Yeah, that's right."

"Awesome." Jared put another slice of the garbage pizza on his plate. "You know, this is really good," he said, taking another bite.

  
  


Thursday, May 2, 1996  
7:57 A.M.  
Reynolds Club

"So who do we really have to watch out for this year?" Jensen asked in a low tone before taking a gulp of his coffee, barely minding that it burned his tongue. Eight in the morning was way too fucking early to be standing out on 57th Street waiting for the fucking judges to approve their road trip team so they could get the fucking list and get on with the goddamn hunt. There was a reason he hadn't scheduled any classes before ten since freshman year, and only having his roommate in the same chem class to take notes for him had made it possible to get his A.

"Have you not been paying attention?" Nicole hissed, holding her coffee cup in front of her mouth. "No matter what the judges come up with for the theme, this year's real theme is 'Beat Stewart Hall.' Everyone knows that."

"Right, so who's going to try and sneak in while we're distracted?" Jensen nodded at Ethan, huddled together with the members of their road trip team, all of whom had maroon sweatshirts on and steaming styrofoam cups in their hands. "He's got a one-track mind and he's been trying to get Stewart for years. Sid over there from Bernstein Hall only took charge of their team to beat Stewart. The frat's in it for the hell of it and the commuter students barely have enough people. The Maroon might be the dark horse, except it doesn't stand a chance."

"Says who?"

Jensen looked up. And up. The kid looming in front of him with narrowed eyes and bedhead worse than Jensen's looked all offended and indignant that someone had insulted his precious newspaper. Must be a first-year.

Jensen carefully raised one eyebrow and looked as scornful as he could, which was pretty easy considering how fucking early it was. "Don't tell me. You're their captain."

The kid flushed. "No, I'm not. But why do you think we're so hopeless?"

"Because you've never done Scav Hunt before." Nicole stepped up, crossing her arms over her midriff.

The kid's eyes flickered down to her low-cut blouse and back up without a hint of interest. Jensen would have celebrated finding a kindred spirit except that he was pissed at being contradicted before his coffee had kicked in. The kid was going on, "Just 'cause I'm a first-year doesn't mean I don't know what I'm doing."

"Oh, not you, honey. Your whole team." Nicole laid a hand on his arm. "The Maroon's never fielded a team before. You guys'll be lucky to finish sixth."

Jensen could see the gears in the kid's head turning, and the moment that it clicked that there were only six teams was soon apparent. "Hey!" he burst out, putting his hands on his hips and displaying a seriously nice set of broad shoulders that had the potential to fill in to something Jensen would be willing to take a look at in a couple of years. He looked over the kid's face, trying to guess his age. There were a lot of Doogie Howsers around here, but this guy wasn't that young. Probably eighteen. Maybe. Hard to tell between the floppy hair and the heart so clearly on his sleeve.

Before Jensen could respond, the door to the Reynolds Club opened and six people came walking down the stone steps. "Here we go," he muttered, watching as the judges passed by them and headed for the six cars parked along 57th Street.

The three of them watched silently as the judges moved from one car to the next, asking questions of the team captains and some of the drivers. Next to the Neon in which the Lakeview team would be traveling, Todd was crossing and uncrossing his arms, nearly spilling his thermos of coffee each time. Behind him, Priya was yawning and leaning up against the side of the car. She clearly wasn't going to be the first one driving. Mitch looked calm and alert enough, hands in his sweatshirt pockets, eyes never leaving the judge who was walking around the car and looking at the duffle bags in the backseat and the pile of road atlases in the front.

When the judges were done, they conferred among themselves on the steps of the Reynolds Club. Todd was shifting back and forth from one foot to the other, and Jensen rolled his eyes. Either the guy had already had too much coffee before getting here, or he was nervous enough that driving was a bad idea. "Can someone tell him to calm down?" he muttered to Nicole so that the Maroon kid wouldn't overhear.

"For Todd, that is calm," she returned. "You should see him during reading period."

"Jesus." Jensen shook his head. He'd worked at the Divinity School coffee shop for two years; he knew how hopped up on caffeine people could get during the days before finals. The awesome thing about the quarter system was that you got to do it three times a year instead of two.

"Ladies and gentlepersons!" Ed Sanchez, the head judge, raised his hands over his head. Instantly, the small crowd on the sidewalk went silent. "We have a few final reminders for you intrepid souls as you begin your dark journey into the heart of the American underbelly."

Jensen watched in amusement as the tall kid's eyebrows shot up. He wondered if he'd even seen a list from past years to know what he was getting into.

"First! Do not break the law. Second! Do not get arrested!" Next to the Neon, the rest of Team Lakeview was very deliberately not looking at Mitch, whose gaze was on the ground. "Third! No driving for more than four hours without switching off. We want you back here in one piece to share in the glory that is Judgment Day, and we remind you that judging will begin at 10 A.M. sharp on Sunday, whether you are here or not. Fourth! Do not break the law. We really, really mean it."

There was a pause to let that sink in. Then the judges started fanning out, one to a car, each holding a list. The teams collectively leaned forward, and Jensen found himself holding his breath. Next to him on the sidewalk, the tall kid was fiddling with the sleeves of his sweatshirt, and it actually distracted Jensen for a moment to wonder how he'd found one long enough to extend over his hands.

"Finally! Your instructions." Ed paused to make sure all eyes were on him, and then he grinned and shouted, "Laissez le bon temps rouler!"

"Oh my God, they're going to New Orleans," Nicole burst out. "Lucky sons of bitches."

"You know they're not going to have time to see anything more than what's on the list," Jensen said, nodding at the road trip teams who were already scrambling into their cars. Still, he felt a small pang of jealousy as Ethan bent down to issue a few final words through the passenger side window before their team pulled off.

Then Ethan came up to them, grinning and rubbing his hands together. "They'll be handing out the rest of the list inside in a few minutes. We're gonna do this, guys. We're really gonna do this."

Forgetting all about the kid from the Maroon, Jensen followed his team captain inside, eager to hear what they'd be subjecting themselves to for the next seventy-two hours.

  
  


"What are you doing hanging out with Ackles?" Kevin asked quietly.

Jared looked around, startled. "Who?" Everyone else was streaming past him and up the worn stone stairs of the Reynolds Club, toward the student organization offices where the Scav Hunt was headquartered and where they'd be receiving the lists.

"Jensen Ackles." Kevin nodded at the dark blond head disappearing between the heavy front doors. "A pre-med's pre-med and dick extraordinaire."

Jared raised his eyebrows. Yeah, the guy had been kind of a dick, but he'd just figured it was the excitement of the competition. "He was trashing our team, so I had to defend it."

"You're cute." Kevin clapped a hand to his shoulder and steered him towards the door. "Come on, you talked me into this thing, let's see what we're in for, huh?"

They followed the small parade inside and down the stairs into the basement, through a maze of student organization offices and into a room that was already crammed with people. There were six teams, each with a captain and some with a co-captain. Since Kevin and Jared were just tagging along—their news editor Tanya was the captain—and it looked like they weren't the only team with more than two people present, the room was packed. Jared found himself glad for his height, crammed as he was in the doorway.

The judges were shuffling some papers around, and Jared leaned down to whisper in Kevin's ear, "Why is that guy such a dick? Jason or whoever?"

"Jensen." Kevin turned his head to the side so no one else but Jared could hear him. "He always breaks the curve and he doesn't let people study with him. There's at least three people I know who are screwed out of getting into med school because of him. And he hit on me last year at this party, wouldn't leave me the fuck alone like I asked him to."

Jared felt his stomach sinking, the momentary glee at finding out the hottest guy he'd ever seen could possibly theoretically be interested in him more than tempered at the fear that his friend had something against him for that same reason. "You think he's a dick because he hit on you?" he asked quietly, looking over at Jensen to make sure he wasn't overhearing them.

"No!" Kevin quickly replied. "It's not that." Jared couldn't read his expression from the side like this, and he suddenly wasn't sure that he wanted to. "Look, I'll tell you later," Kevin said, turning back towards the front of the room as if there was something happening up there beyond more shuffling of papers.

Jared fidgeted in the doorway, waiting impatiently. Finally, Ed raised both hands to quiet the group as the petite woman with bright red hair next to him opened a drawer and took out a stack of file folders. "The List," he said with enough sonority to make it clear that both words should be capitalized. "I remind you once again that nothing on this list should be obtained illegally, that all judges' decisions will be final, and that all items must be assembled by ten o'clock at Ida Noyes Hall on Sunday for Judgment Day. Also, all judges' decisions are final. Any questions?"

Nothing was vocalized, but Jared could feel the electric tension in the room, the way everyone was leaning towards Ed and his file folders, itching to get their hands on their contents.

"All right then. In order of last year's results: Stewart Hall."

There was a low murmur in the room, and a blonde in U of C sweats and her hair in a messy bun reached out to grab the first folder. A skinny guy nearly as tall as Jared instantly started to force a path through the crowded room, and she followed him, already flipping the folder open. "Oh, my God," she muttered as she passed Jared. "Holy—"

"Bernstein Hall." A short, nervous-looking man with thin blond hair came forward to grab the folder and quickly follow the Stewart folks out the door.

"Delta Upsilon." Two clean-cut guys took the folder from Ed and made their way out. Jared thought he heard the girl who'd been with Jensen say, "I thought you said they were just in it for the hell of it," but Jensen only gave her an irritated look.

"Commuters." This time, it was two Hispanic women who stepped forward, leaving two teams in the room.  
"Lakeview Hall." Jared watched another skinny blond, this one with an eyebrow piercing, grab his folder and walk out, Jensen and his friend close behind. Jared had moved into the room once there was space for him, but he was still close to the doorway. When Jensen passed within a hand's-breadth of him, he gave him a wink that had Jared's breath catching before he rolled his eyes at himself for being stupid. Right. Like someone that hot would be interested in him.

"And the new gang in town," Ed said with a grin. "The Maroon. Best of luck!"

Tanya was already rushing out the door and around the corner to where the student newspaper offices were. "We can have this photocopied before the rest of them get back to their headquarters," she threw over her shoulder.

"Aren't you going to look at it?" Jared asked, trailing along behind her.

"I will once it's copied," she said, rounding the corner into the office where they were already used to spending long hours and where a dozen of their teammates were already waiting. "Don't want to get distracted."

"She is going to be an awesome captain," Kevin muttered.

Jared nodded as Tanya dropped the stack of papers into the photocopier and hit the button.

As soon as the lists were collated, she handed one to everyone in the room. "Kevin, you're marking the road trip items on your list in yellow so we can check them off as they're obtained. Jared, find the local items and highlight them in blue so we can get a team together to drive around the city. Sue, the information-only items will be in pink. Taylor, you need to find…"

Jared stopped listening, his jaw already dropping as he read over the pages. Extract a fetal pig heart and brain in 1 minute, keeping the organs intact. BYOP. He shuddered. An interpretive dance of the 30 Years' War. Include all phases and the Defenestration of Prague. That could be kind of fun, actually. A trebuchet to launch a pineapple over the mounted knight statue on the Midway. Jared tried to picture how tall that statue was, and what kind of force it would take to launch a pineapple all the way over it, and what kind of materials he could get his hands on to built a giant catapult—

"Focus, people!" Tanya clapped her hands the same way she did when the deadline for the paper was approaching. "You can look at the whole list later. Right now, find your assigned items and highlight them. We have no time to waste."

Jared shook his head and started looking for items that had to be obtained within Chicago. This was going to be even crazier than he had thought.


	2. The Hunt Begins

Friday, May 3, 1996  
1:24 P.M.  
103 E. Chestnut St.

"Jensen, there's someone coming out of the church!"

"It's not a church, it's a seminary," he muttered, but he took a step back and turned around like he was watching the pedestrians go by on Rush Street, fighting the urge to hide his pencil and paper behind his back. He wasn't doing anything wrong, but the statue whose plaque they were supposed to make a rubbing of was behind a chest-high iron fence that he had to half-climb and then lean over, and it might look to the average passerby like he was doing something wrong.

Next to him, Christina, the second-year who'd volunteered to come along with him on the mini-road trip as she insisted on calling it, folded her arms over her chest. "Whatever."

"You're not from L.A., are you?" Jensen couldn't help but ask at what was almost a valley girl accent. Down the block, a grey-haired priest emerged from a doorway and started to walk away from them along Chestnut Street.

"No," she retorted. A moment later, she added, "I wasn't born there, anyway."

His lips twitched, but all he said was, "Not many Californians at U of C, are there?"

"They're all afraid of the cold." She tossed her head, long blond hair sliding over her shoulders. "They spend their whole lives wanting to go to UCLA or Berkeley. Personally, I wanted to get as far away from there as I could."

"Don't like palm trees?" Jensen asked. The priest was almost around the block, so he turned around and stepped up to the fence he'd been half-climbing a moment ago.

"Don't like fake people." Christina wrinkled her nose. "All the ads in the papers are for boob jobs and nose jobs, and everyone only wants to be your friend if they know it's going to get them somewhere."

"At least it's not freezing cold in May, though." Jensen had a sweatshirt on over his henley and t-shirt, and he still wasn't warm enough. Damn Windy City.

"There is that." She moved next to him and turned her attention back to the building. "You're not from around here either, are you?"

"Nope. Dallas." Jensen stepped up onto the bottom rail of the fence, leaning carefully over the spiked tips of the fence and lining up the paper with the plaque. Perfect.

"You don't have much of an accent," Christina said.

"It's faded while I've been here." He started to rub with the pencil. "Got a lot of shit for it my first year, though. Everybody kept asking me where my cowboy boots were, if I was bowlegged from riding a horse. Stuff like that."

"You are kinda bowlegged," she replied.

Jensen recognized the tone of her voice right away. He pulled his lower lip between his teeth and kept rubbing the plaque, preparing himself for one more awkward rejection once he told her why he wasn't interested. "Just born like this."

"Hmm." He braced for more, but suddenly she drew in a breath. "Jensen, he's coming back!"

"Almost done," he muttered, scraping across the paper faster. He had the feeling the Scav Hunt judges had every damn letter on this plaque recorded, and a less-than-perfect rubbing of it would result in no points at all.

"Jensen!" Christina hissed, grabbing at his belt loop. Barely recovering his balance, he hastily rubbed over the last word and hopped down the couple of inches to the sidewalk. "Got it," he said, folding up the paper and carefully tucking it into his back pocket.

"Let's go," she said, grabbing his hand and tugging him towards the street.

"Excuse me!" called someone from behind them.

Jensen closed his eyes and groaned. Figuring it could only help his case as an innocent bystander, he kept a hold of Christina's hand as they both turned around. The priest they'd seen earlier was hurrying towards them, frowning. Jensen cleared his throat. "Can I help you, Father?"

"What were you doing with Bishop Quigley's statue?" the man demanded as he approached, his brow furrowing in well-worn lines.

"Nothing," Jensen quickly replied. "Just, um, admiring it."

"My brother went to school here," Christina piped up. "He was going into the priesthood, until, well…" She dropped her gaze to the sidewalk and added in a quiet voice, "Until the accident."

Jensen squeezed her hand and bit his lip, hoping that he looked like he was being sympathetic rather than trying not to laugh.

When he looked up, the priest was regarding them both with his head cocked to the side. "I'm very sorry to hear that," he replied. Then he shook his head. "It's just that I've had to chase away two other groups of people from that very statue this morning. Sometimes young people get these strange ideas about what's fun, and they don't stop to think about what might be disrespectful of others."

"We understand completely," Jensen said with a solemn nod. "No disrespect here."

The priest narrowed his eyes, and for a moment, Jensen was afraid he was going to accuse them of something. But then he gave a nod towards Christina. "My sympathies for your brother," he said. "He will be in my prayers."

"Thank you, Father," she said, projecting such sincerity that Jensen wondered if her story was true.

When the priest had turned around and gone back inside the seminary building, Jensen let go of Christina's hand. "Do you even have a brother?" he asked in a low voice.

She snorted. "Believe me, he is not priest material."

Jensen chuckled. "Quick thinking, then."

"Thanks." Christina looked up from under her lashes. "You, too. Holding my hand, I mean."

He reached up and rubbed the back of his neck. "I, uh. I'm sorry. I don't want to give you the wrong impression." God, this didn't get any less awkward every time he did it, no matter that he had a couple of years of practice by now. There was always that fear that the expression on someone's face would change to disgust once they understood, and he wondered if that fear would ever go away.

"Oh." Christina blinked at him. "Okay, I'm embarrassed now. Sorry about that." Then she shook her head and put on a determined look. "So what's the next item on the list?"

"It's not you, it's—I don't date girls." Jensen let out a breath and braced himself for her reaction. "That's all."

"Oh!" She blinked and then gave a sideways nod towards the seminary. "That would be why my brother is not cut out for the priesthood."

"Oh." Jensen smiled back at her, feeling the tension leaving his shoulders. "That's cool."

"So're you," she returned with a wink, and he relaxed a little more.

The sound of a car screeching to a halt had them both looking up. A black pickup was double parking across the street, and the tall guy hopping out of the driver's side was all too familiar. They'd already run into each other once today along the Chicago River, taking down the names of the people listed on some plaque, exchanging brief but competitive glances before dashing off to their respective next stops. Jensen had been glad that his library skills were top-notch, because finding out what the Chicago Gateway Green Committee was and where their plaque was located had been a bitch and a half.

"Well, if it's not the Moron. I mean, the Maroon," Jensen called out.

He'd learned that the guy's name was Jared Something-Unpronounceable, and right now he was learning that Jared had a pretty good bitchface on him. "Hello to you, too," Jared returned, wrinkling his nose.

Christina went on tiptoe and whispered in his ear. "Should we tell him?"

Jensen thought about it for a moment. They were strictly forbidden from sabotaging other teams, but that would be something like stealing the plaque from the statue or blocking access to it. There was no reason to tell another team that they might have to keep an eye out for an overprotective priest. Especially not when Jensen recognized the guy getting out of the passenger side as Kevin Cooper, one of his least favorite people on campus.

"Nah," he returned before giving Jared a mocking salute. "Have fun, boys," he smirked, starting off down Chestnut Street. He felt Jared's eyes on him as he walked past, but he never turned around.

"Oh my God, I'm going to kill him." Jared's hands clenched around the steering wheel as he accelerated down Michigan Avenue.

"Dude, chill." In the passenger seat, Kevin held up a hand. "And watch the cabs."

"Right," Jared muttered. No matter how little space he tried to leave between his pickup and the vehicle in front of him, there was always a taxi trying to wedge its way in, slowing them down even more. "Did you see what he did?"

"Look, I agree the guy's a dick, but I don't think he did anything. It was just bad luck."

"You weren't the one who got chewed out by a priest." Jared let out a huff of breath as the light turned red and he hit the brakes. "God, that sucked."

Kevin braced himself against the dashboard with a muffled curse. "And you're not even Catholic."

"The point is, Ackles knew it was going to happen. Did you see the smirk he was giving me when he walked away? He totally did that on purpose. And now we're not going to get the points." Jared shook his head in exasperation, remembering the way the blonde girl had been pressed up against Jensen as they pulled up in front of the seminary from which they were shortly thereafter chased away. The two of them had practically sauntered down the street, at least until a bus crossed the street at the far end of the block and they took off running for it. "At least he and his girlfriend are stuck taking the bus."

"Cocksucker like that doesn't have a girlfriend," Kevin replied. As Jared turned towards him in shock, he tapped on the inside of the window. "'Sides, parking this thing isn't exactly convenient. Lemme out here and I'll get it."

"Yeah, okay," Jared responded automatically, pulling over to the curb. "I'll circle the block."

"Got it." Kevin was out the door and down the stairs underneath the Billy Goat Tavern sign in an instant.

Jared sat back against the seat with a sigh. There went any idea he might have entertained about coming out to his friend. Sure, he'd heard that language used before, but not by anyone he respected. If that was how Kevin talked about gay men behind their backs, Jared didn't want to know how he'd treat him if he knew.

He wondered how Kevin was so sure about Jensen's orientation, anyway. Just because he'd been hit on by the guy didn't mean Jensen was gay. He could be bi, or he could have just been trying to yank Kevin's chain. From the little Jared knew of him it seemed like something Jensen would do. Jared snorted as he drove forward as the light changed. Not that he knew Jensen. Or wanted to.

Sure you don't, said the same corner of his mind that kept helpfully replaying the way Jensen's full lips broadened in a smirk or the way the corners of his eyes crinkled.

"Shut up," he said out loud, then shook his head at himself. He was taking this way too seriously. After this weekend, he'd probably never run into Ackles again.

It took three times around the block before Kevin was out on the sidewalk, paper hat from the Billy Goat clutched in one hand. "Got it," he said, sliding into the passenger seat as a taxi honked. "Now on to Union Station!"

"Is that the soap dispenser?" Jared asked. The tires were humming as they drove over the grating of the Michigan Avenue bridge. He grimaced as they came to a stop, not liking being suspended over the Chicago River while waiting for the light.

"No, that's from another train station. Here, turn right at Wacker."

Jared obeyed, pausing to let a horde of tourists cross the street. It was a gorgeous Friday morning, bright and sunny in early May, and he was spending it crisscrossing the city in his truck and getting yelled at by a priest, of all the stupid things. "I guess this one's my turn, right?"

"Yep." Kevin's reply came a little too quickly, but it wasn't until Jared had navigated them around the bend in the river and across it again on one more bridge that he realized why. As he came to a stop and put the truck in park in a loading zone, Kevin was holding out the Scav Hunt list and pointing to item 98, clearly fighting a grin.

"Oh, no way!" Jared screwed up his face. "Dude, that's gross."

"You said it was your turn." Kevin unbuckled his seatbelt. "Lemme get in the driver's seat so I can pull around the block if I have to."

Grumbling, Jared got out of the truck. "You totally owe me."

"I'll grab the steak knife from Magnum's, how about that?" Before Jared could remind him that they weren't supposed to steal anything for the list, Kevin snapped his fingers. "Almost forgot. You might need this." He held out an empty Ziploc bag. "Put your hand in it inside out, pick the thing up, and close it."

"You're so helpful," Jared muttered, tucking it in his sweatshirt pocket and rounding the front of the truck.

He followed a group of commuters inside, the men decked out in suits and ties, the women in smart heels and pencil skirts. It was early for rush hour, but there were still streams of people heading through the station on their way to their trains home, and Jared tried to go along with the flow. Hands tucked in his jean pockets, he went down an escalator and followed the signs for the restroom. God, this was going to suck.

When he entered the men's room, there was only one other occupant. Jared headed to the sink to wash his hands and stall for time, hoping the guy would leave and he'd have his chance. But then another person entered, and another, and Jared wondered how long he could hang out in the bathroom without looking like a perv.

Finally, he got his chance: one guy in a stall and no one in the main room. He pulled out the plastic bag and turned it inside out like Kevin had suggested. Going up to the first urinal, he found it empty. So was the second, and Jared started to wonder if his team was the last one to make it to Union Station.

But the third one still had the bright blue scent cake under the white plastic holder, and Jared screwed up his face and grabbed it with the inside of the Ziploc bag. Grimacing, he carefully turned the bag inside out and started to close it.

The toilet flushed, and the occupant of the stall came out, one of the nattily-dressed men Jared had followed into the station. He stared at Jared, then at the plastic bag and contents in his hand, then at the empty urinals, then back at Jared.

"Um." Jared really wanted to wash his hands, but he suddenly wanted to get out of there even more. "The other bathroom's out. I'm transferring them over."

"But now this bathroom's out, too," the guy replied, looking Jared up and down.

"Oh. Um, right." Jared shrugged and started sidling towards the door. "Have a nice day?"

The guy shook his head and headed for the sink, muttering something under his breath about weirdos.

Jared took a deep breath and headed for the door, holding the bag down at his side. Should he put it in his sweatshirt pocket? Anything really gross was on the inside of the bag, but he still didn't like the idea. He didn't exactly enjoy carrying a urinal cake around in a see-through bag, either, but it was a short trip back up the escalator to the door he'd come in, and Kevin better damn well be waiting right there.

He rounded a corner and almost smacked into someone. "Hey, watch it," came a low, familiar voice.

Jared's head snapped up. Jensen Ackles was two feet in front of him, glaring like Jared actually had run him down. He was about to get indignant when he remembered what he had just accomplished. "Last one," he smirked, holding up the bag.

"No way," Jensen growled, and Jared was not going to think about how that sound coupled with the sparks snapping in Jensen's eyes made a frisson of something run down his spine.

"Sucks to be you," he returned, sailing past Jensen and towards the exit.

Maybe this Scav Hunt thing had its fun moments after all.

4:53 P.M.  
Red Cross bloodmobile, U of C

Nicole's quiet but falsely perky voice broke into Jensen's thoughts. "Oh, look, Jensen, your arch nemesis is here."

Jensen looked up from where he'd been contemplating the floor to see a tall, brown-haired figure entering the Red Cross tent. He quickly turned his head. "He's not my arch nemesis," he muttered. "I barely know him."

"Then why were you complaining about him so much an hour ago?" Nicole looked past him, apparently following Jared's progress.

Jensen might have been more annoyed, except he knew she was deliberately keeping her head turned away from her arm with the needle and tubing taped to it. He sighed, reminding himself that he was here to distract Nicole and help her earn the Lakeview team twenty points for a blood donation, not to wallow in his own grudges. "He got lucky. Doesn't matter, we're still gonna kick their asses."

She craned her head to watch Jared cross the far side of the tent, her dark curls shifting with the motion. "Not what you should be doing to that ass."

"Nicole!" he hissed.

She laughed. "Come on, you've got to admit that's a fine piece of booty. Maybe you could have hate sex or something. Get it out of your system."

"He's not my type," Jensen muttered. "Besides, I'm sure he's straight. Come on, squeeze your ball so we can get out of here."

Her eyebrows shot up, but she squeezed the rubber ball to keep the blood flowing from her arm. "I hope you know I'm only restraining myself right now because I know how much I owe you for coming along with me."

"Yeah, well, it's not like I can do anything else here, is it?" He tried to keep the bitterness out of his voice, but he was only partially successful.

"That's not your fault," Nicole returned, patting his arm. "Besides, you could be back at HQ getting us points some other way instead of sitting here babysitting me."

He shrugged one shoulder. "Whatever it takes." Then he gave her a sideways look. "'Sides, if you passed out again like last year, we'd be down one person for the whole day, so this is in everyone's best interest."

"Shut up." She shoved at his shoulder, and Jensen chuckled.

He looked across the tent, recognizing Jared's broad shoulders in front of one the curtained-off desks where the Red Cross volunteers did their initial processing. Jensen figured it would take about five minutes for him to go through the standard questions and then be led over to one of the chairs where the blood donation took place. He hoped he and Nicole would be over at the cookie and juice table by then, out of Jared's line of sight. Jensen was tired from running around downtown all morning, annoyed at himself for not warning Jared about the priest and then getting burned at the train station in what was probably a case of karma biting him on the ass, and he didn't want the guy to see him and start lording it over him some more.

"How are we doing, dear?" The nurse who'd started the procedure for Nicole came over, smiling warmly. "Feeling all right?"

"Just fine!" Nicole said through a clenched-teeth smile. When the woman turned away, Nicole muttered, "Or at least I was fine until you brought up the possibility that I might not be fine."

Jensen squeezed her forearm. "Looks like you're almost done," he said, jerking his chin towards the bag hanging from the pole behind her.

"Ugh, do not tell me you're watching that fill up with my blood. That's just gross."

He raised an eyebrow. "I am a pre-med, you know."

She wrinkled up her nose. "I already know I'm not going to get anything out of playing doctor with you, so leave it alone."

Jensen couldn't help the laugh that burst out. Nicole was one of his best friends here, a neighbor in his dorm freshman year who had been one of the first people he came out to because she seemed so level-headed and accepting. She admitted later that she'd never known anyone who was gay before, but when faced with an actual application of the theory of tolerance that she'd always understood herself to have, she had no choice but to follow it. He'd laughed at her pragmatic approach that was somehow very U of C, and they'd been good friends ever since.

A few heads turned at the unusual sound of someone laughing in a blood donation tent, and Jensen ducked his head, slightly embarrassed. But he didn't move fast enough before Jared saw him, eyes briefly narrowing before he turned back to the nurse seated across the table.

"Great, now he saw me," Jensen muttered.

"You big baby," Nicole returned.

They started discussing in low voices the next items they were going to be working on once they returned to headquarters. While it was a pain to have the Lakeview dorm located over a mile away from the rest of campus, which was one of the reasons Jensen had moved out after two years, it was a benefit this weekend because they could spread out without fear of being seen by outsiders. He was looking forward to getting back and seeing if any of the phone calls he'd made that morning had been fruitful. He had a cousin who'd been to Australia, and if he could persuade her that he'd pay for the express shipping both ways and that nothing would happen to her didgeridoo, that was fifty points. He'd already called his father about getting a letter from a foreign consulate wishing the Lakeview team good luck; that was almost in the bag, considering his dad's connections with the oil industry in Houston, but it would be good to have it confirmed.

Raised voices caught Jensen's attention, and he looked up to see Jared pushing his chair back and leaning over the table. "That's ridiculous," he almost growled, and the hair on the back of Jensen's neck prickled. "Are you serious?"

Whatever the nurse responded with must not have been the right answer, because Jared smacked the folding table hard enough to make it jump. The rest of the tent suddenly went quiet, all eyes turning towards the nurse, who was rising to her feet as well. "I'm sorry, but I don't make the rules," she said.

"It's a stupid rule," Jared retorted. "One time, that's all it was, and neither of us had ever—" He suddenly broke off, apparently aware that everyone else in the place was looking at him. His cheeks flushed pink and he took a step back.

Jensen's gut twisted in sympathy as he suddenly understood. "Fuck," he breathed out quietly as Jared took a look around and then stormed out, hands in fists at his sides. It wasn't too hard to guess what had just happened, and although Jensen was surprised it had blindsided Jared like that, that didn't meant it didn't suck.

He looked down at Nicole, hesitating. "Will you be all right if I head out for a minute?"

She nodded, understanding written all over her face. "Yeah, I'll be fine."

He squeezed her arm once more and headed for the entrance, shouldering his way past the people who were clustered around the nurse who had been part of the confrontation. When he got outside, blinking in the bright light, he instantly saw Jared, long legs already carrying him halfway down the block.

Hoping this didn't come back to bite him in the ass, Jensen hurried after him.

Jared didn't think he'd ever been so humiliated in his whole life. Now that he thought about it, he'd known that he wouldn't be allowed to donate blood, but he'd thought it wouldn't be a big deal, that it was one of those technicalities that didn't count if you talked to the right person. Because seriously, this was ridiculous.

Instead, he'd gotten a nurse who was polite but insistent that their damn homophobic rules be followed. Worse yet, she almost made him blurt out his biggest secret to everyone in the tent, which was filled with Scav Hunt participants literally giving their blood for their team. God, it was so unfair. He didn't have a problem with needles, didn't have any fear at all, and here he couldn't do this one simple thing because one time—

And why did fucking Ackles have to be in there to witness his humiliation? He was probably laughing it off with his friend right now. Jared knew it was irrational that it made him hate the guy more, but it did. God, this whole stupid Scav Hunt sucked goats.

Jared shook his head at himself as he stalked down the street. He was across 59th Street and onto the Midway in a minute, taking a deep breath and trying to enjoy having no one else around him for a moment. It wasn't exactly wilderness, but it was a green strip of park a full block wide between the Gothic facades of the main campus and the newer, more modern structures to the south. It meant breathing room, the only place he could find it in the middle of the city, and this wasn't the first time this year he'd come out here to get away for a little while.

"Jared!"

He recognized the voice before he whirled around, and even though he had managed to relax his hands at his sides, they clenched into fists again at the sound. "What do you want?" Jared barked as Ackles drew closer.

Jensen held out a hand as if to calm him down as he came within a few steps. "Just wanted to see if you're okay, man."

"Yeah, I'm awesome," Jared snapped back. "Now go the fuck away."

Jensen looked back at him for a long moment, searching his face. Jared folded his arms across his chest and moved closer. He usually tried not to use his height to intimidate, but this seemed like a damn good time for it.

Finally Jensen gave a short nod, lips pressed together. "Sorry," he said, and Jared blinked. "About what happened in there," he went on, jerking his thumb over his shoulder.

"C'mon, you should be thrilled!" Jared threw out his hands and glared, part of him glad to have someone on whom to take out his frustration. "That's twenty points I can't get for my team, after all."

Jensen looked back unflinchingly, chin slightly raised. "It's the same twenty points I can't get for mine."

There was silence for a second, broken only by the low rush of cars sweeping past. Jared slowly lowered his arms and stared back at Jensen. He thought of some of the other questions the nurse had asked him and cautiously said, "What, you've been to Africa or something?"

Jensen rolled his eyes, and the sarcastic expression was surprisingly familiar after only knowing the guy for a couple of days. "No, Jared. I've been with guys, okay?"

"Oh." Suddenly, Jared found himself tongue-tied. It was the first time he was talking to someone else at college who was gay, not to mention it was someone he'd been wanting to punch about sixty seconds ago, and he oddly had no idea what to say. "So you…without any…?"

"Shouldn't do it if you can't say it," Jensen returned. The corner of his mouth curled up in a slight smirk. "And you've obviously done it, given what happened in there."

"Shut up," Jared retorted. "It was one time and it was both of our firsts." He instantly put a hand to his forehead. "God, I can't believe I'm telling you this."

"Next you're gonna tell me it was prom night."

Jared's jaw dropped before he could catch himself, and Jensen's eyebrows shot up. "Wow. That's actually…kind of cute."

"Shut up," Jared said again, but it was more half-hearted this time. Then something occurred to him, and he froze. "You can't tell anyone," he said, glaring at Jensen again.

He held his hands out, completely serious. "I wouldn't. I mean, my friends know, and there are guys around here to date, but it's not like I go around wearing pink and purple."

Jared looked down at his own pink and white striped oxford shirt. "Right."

Jensen went on, "Not that anyone's ever given me crap about it. So don't worry about that. If you decided to come out, that is."

He nodded, part of him amazed at how easily he was spilling his guts to someone he would have said he hated a few minutes ago. "I mostly have at home."

"That's cool. I couldn't until I came here. Swear to God, last year trying to give blood for Scav Hunt was the first time it was ever a problem. It was real fun to explain to my team captain that I wasn't afraid of needles, I just wasn’t allowed because one time, I didn't use a condom."

Jared froze. He hadn't even thought of that. "Oh shit. I can't—I can't tell them what happened." His mind raced as he stared down at the sidewalk. Had anyone else from the Maroon team been in the tent to see his shouting fit? Had anyone else besides Jensen figured it out?

He saw Jensen's hand briefly reaching towards him before he pulled away and said, "There's a whole lot of rules on that list, Jared. Who the hell says you have to explain yourself, anyway? Just tell them you found out you can't donate, and it's none of their business why."

"Yeah, I guess so." Head still lowered, he looked at Jensen through his lashes. "Thanks, man. You—you didn't have to come out after me like that."

"Yeah, I kinda did." Jensen's mouth twitched. "I was a dick to you this morning, and…" He trailed off and scratched the back of his neck. "I thought I knew what you were going through, so."

"Thanks," Jared said softly. Jensen gave him a tentative smile, which Jared returned.

Then Jared turned it into more of a smirk. "We're still gonna kick your ass, though."

Jensen's smile froze, and then his face fell. "If that's all this is to you, then fine." He took a step back, and then another. "See you at Judgment Day," he sneered before turning on his heel and stalking away.

"Jensen, wait," Jared called, aware too late that he'd screwed up big time, but the other man didn't turn around. "Sorry!" he shouted, but there was no response. "Fuck," he said more quietly, watching Jensen's bowed legs carry him away.

Well, he'd blown that for sure.


	3. Drastic Measures

Saturday, May 4, 1996  
2:14 A.M.  
Lakeview Hall

The headquarters at the Lakeview dorm was absolute chaos at two o'clock on Saturday morning, thirty-six hours into the hunt. One copy of The List was taped to the wall between the tall windows overlooking the lakefront, items crossed off in various colors. Pencil meant someone was looking into it, like Jensen's call to his dad about the letter from a consulate, although he was losing hope on that one since regular business hours were long since over. Red meant something that someone had to do on Sunday when the judging took place and a willing victim had been found, like the poor schmuck who was going to consume a packet of powder from a Kraft Macaroni n' Cheese box without drinking anything. Black meant the item was physically in the room, like the copy of Plato's Republic with all of the i's dotted with hearts, worth thirty-five points. Jensen's hand was still cramped from helping to finish that one.

The top of the list had the guaranteed point totals on Post-it notes that could be updated as necessary. The current total of 276 points was depressingly low, and as Jensen looked over the list, he thought there were a disturbingly large number of items on the list that were blank. How could they not have a quickening lined up? This was a university full of nerds; there had to be Highlander geeks around here somewhere. And surely they could find someone who could recite the Star Wars trilogy from memory given a starting point from any of the three films. He could probably manage the original, but there had to be someone who could do all three.

"How're we doing on those cranes?" Jensen asked, spinning around to look at a table against the near wall piled high with origami cranes.

Nicole looked up from the paper she was folding. "Only three hundred, and we started as soon as we got the list. There's no way we're going to get to a thousand in the time we have left unless more people pitch in."

Jensen frowned and looked back at the list. "Yeah, but seventy-five points is a lot. That's the kind of thing we should be able to get people to work on when they need a break. Or go door to door in the dorm and ask everyone to do five or six. Keep it up."

"Yes, sir," she replied, but it was with a tired grin that let him know she wasn't taking it the wrong way. Ethan was out doing something he claimed was going to bring them a lot of points, and since Jensen was accustomed to all-nighters studying for chem or bio, he didn't mind running things for a few hours.

"Have we heard from the road trip lately?" he asked the red-haired guy who was sitting near the phone in the other corner of the room. A first-year, Jensen thought, even if he couldn't remember his name. He was wearing a t-shirt that one of the houses in Bernstein Hall had been selling for the past couple of years as a fundraiser, with "The University of Chicago: Where Fun Comes to Die" emblazoned across the front. From what Jensen knew, it was a really successful fundraiser.

The guy cleared his throat and looked up from whatever he was doing. "They're still in Mississippi, but they got the menu from that barbeque joint. They'll call again around noon if they can find a pay phone."

"Excellent." Jensen crossed that one off in pencil, since it wasn't physically in the room yet. "Which one are you working on?" He noticed a Barbie and a Ken doll on the couch sitting next to the guy, and then he noticed the X-acto knife in his hand, and he looked more closely to make sure the guy was awake enough to be using a sharp blade like that.

"Oh. Um." The kid blushed almost to match the shade of his hair. "It's number twenty-four."

Jensen frowned, wondering why the guy remembered the number but not what he was doing. When he saw the list, he had to fight back a grin. Barbie and Ken in leather bondage gear, seventeen points. "Uh, keep it up, then."

The redhead nodded and went back to work.

Jensen went back to looking at the list, wondering if there was anything else he could get started on. Remembering his words to Nicole just a minute ago, he went over to sit down across from her and picked up a square of white paper. "Show me how to do this?"

She demonstrated quickly and efficiently, and a moment later he had a wobbly-looking crane in his hand. "Huh. Not too hard."

"Do another ninety-nine, and then you can say 'not too hard," she shot back, dropping a crane of her own on the pile and making two tick marks on the paper next to her.

Jensen grinned and picked up another square of paper. This was kind of soothing in a way. It was the calm before the storm, with only one full day left before Judgment Day on Sunday. Thirty-two hours left, and they had a group of about that many people who were seriously devoted to the cause. There were other people willing to show up for various tasks, like the slow bicycle race (last person across the line got sixty points), and they were all listed on another sheet taped up to the wall. Jensen was going to have to track them all down tomorrow and verify that they would, in fact, be there on Sunday morning. There were lots of phone calls still to be made, lots of running around town getting items, but at two-thirty in the morning, there wasn't much else to do but make paper cranes.

The peace lasted about ten minutes, until Ethan burst into the room. "We are totally and utterly fucked," he announced.

"Did something happen to the road trip team?" The voice belonged to the redhead, who Jensen had almost forgotten was in the room.

"No. Not that I know of." Ethan took a deep breath. "But Stewart got the elephant."

"What?" Jensen heard the sound of crumpling paper before it registered that he'd crushed the crane he'd just finished folding. "How the fuck?"

"Who knows." Ethan dropped onto the couch next to Bondage Barbie. "That's five hundred fucking points. More than anything else on the list. Even if we got the hovercraft and the tattoo and the airplane with the banner, that's still not five hundred total. And the fuckers probably have all of those, too."

"Priya agreed to do the international collect call for us," Nicole said. "That's ninety."

"Whoopdee-fucking-doo," Ethan returned, closing his eyes and leaning his head back against the couch. "It's not a goddamn live elephant."

The redhead cleared his throat. "How do you know they have it, Ethan?"

"Item one hundred sixty-one," Ethan replied without opening his eyes.

Jensen raised his eyebrows at Nicole, and she shrugged. They both got up to look at the list, and then stared at each other. "You bugged Stewart Hall?" Jensen exclaimed.

"I was gonna do it anyway, and then when it turned out that proof of audio surveillance of another team was on The List, that made it even better." Ethan fished in his shirt pocket and held up a small transmitter. "There's that spy shop on south Dearborn, right? I was visiting a friend at Stewart last week and dropped the other half of this under the couch in their common room. It's been kind of fuzzy, but the part where they all started cheering their heads off about the elephant was pretty fucking clear."

"What are we gonna do?" the redhead asked. He'd gotten off the couch and was standing next to Jensen, poring over the list.

"I don't know," Ethan answered. "Got any ideas, Keith?"

The redhead shrugged. "I have a cousin who's in the Army Corps of Engineers. He told me once about this hovercraft they use to clear away ice on the river south of Chicago. I could call him in the morning and see if there's any way he could bring it up."

"Why didn't you say something before?" Jensen demanded.

Keith backed up a step, looking startled, making Jensen realized he hadn't exactly modulated his voice. "Sorry," Jensen quickly added.

He gave another shrug. "I didn't think of it before. Sorry."

"No, it's okay." Jensen ran a hand though his hair. "Sorry, I'm getting tired, I guess."

"Go crash, man." Ethan held out his the key to his dorm room. "We'll help Nicole fold cranes or some shit."

Jensen scrubbed a hand through his hair. "Yeah, okay. I'll be back in a few."

He was sure he wasn't going to sleep a wink, given how his mind was racing, but his eyes closed as soon as his head hit Ethan's pillow, and that was the last thing he remembered.

That, and the seriously bizarre dreams involving an elephant and Bondage Barbie and Ken.

7:32 A.M.  
Maroon offices, Reynolds Club

Jared went back to his dorm at two. His dorm wasn't participating, and it was weird to escape the frantic atmosphere of the newspaper headquarters for the quiet hallways. His roommate Mack was out as always; since Mack's girlfriend had a single room, Mack spent most of his time over there, which suited Jared just fine. Not that they didn't get along, it was just nice not to have to share a room the size of a shoebox with another guy over six feet tall.

He slept till seven, showered, grabbed breakfast, and showed up at the Maroon office to find a host of seriously glum faces.

"What happened?" he asked Tanya, who was perusing her copy of The List with a Sharpie in one hand and an expression that suggested she might have been chewing on nails instead of the half-eaten donut on the desk next to her.

"We're screwed is what happened," she replied. "Stewart Hall is going to bring a live elephant to campus tomorrow morning."

"Holy shit." Jared had figured that was one of the impossible items put on the list to make it clear how outrageous this whole thing really was, not that anyone would actually get it. "How'd they do that?"

"Second-year who has an uncle who works for the circus." Tanya held up a hand when Jared opened his mouth. "That's all I know. That, and the five hundred points means they're going to win, since there's nothing else worth half that much."

Jared frowned at the list. "There's a few that are almost two hundred points."

Tanya snorted. "Like the police escort? Or the mobile staircase for boarding a plane? Why don't we call up Southwest Airlines and see if they're not using one of theirs tomorrow at Midway and could they please bring it over? Or if the CPD has nothing to do on a Sunday morning, could they drive down 59th Street with their lights and sirens on?" She shook her head, dark ponytail swishing back and forth. She looked like she hadn't slept all night, and if she was as focused about the scavenger hunt as she was about putting the paper out, she probably hadn't. "No, the best we can do is second place, and that's what we should plan for."

"Why?" Jared asked, stung at the thought of just giving up.

"Because we don't have a fucking elephant." The voice came from Joe the sports editor, who was sitting at his desk with a pile of Legos in front of him, his Chicago Bears cap backwards on his head.

Jared turned back to the list. "Do we have any of the other big ticket items?"

Tanya pointed at #210. "Johannes has a copy of the letter renouncing his German citizenship from when he became an American citizen. That's one fifty."

Jared nodded. "And everything crossed off—is that something we have for sure?"

"Either already here or someone has promised it, yeah." Tanya tapped the top of the first page. "Six hundred seventy one points, assuming the road trip team makes it back in one piece."

"The elephant's worth five hundred," Joe called, fitting together a couple of Lego blocks.

"Would you shut up about the fucking elephant!" Tanya demanded. Then she drew in a deep breath. "Sorry. I'm usually better with deadlines."

Jared put a hand on her shoulder and awkwardly patted it before withdrawing. "What if we did something completely different?"

"Like what?" she asked.

He took a deep breath, hoping he wasn't about to get laughed at. "Can we combine teams?"

Her eyebrows shot up. "Combine teams?"

"Yeah. Like join forces with another team that has some other high-point items." He gestured at Tanya's list, encouraged when she didn't try to stop his explanation. "A lot of those things aren't hard, we just need someone to commit to doing them. Thirty items worth twenty points beats the stupid elephant. Like the…" he looked at the page she had open. "'Sax and violins, 21 points.' All we need is a saxophonist and at least two violins. My roommate plays violin in the orchestra. If we had a big enough pool of people to draw from, we could find the other two, and all they have to do is show up on Sunday."

Tanya pursed her lips. "You're saying we don't have enough people on our team."

"I'm saying we have some great connections that other teams don't, which means we can get things like the renounced citizenship letter." When she nodded, he went on, "But we only have a couple of dozen people really working on this. We need a bigger team if we want to do better than second place."

"Hmm." She tapped the capped end of the Sharpie against her lips. "Which suggests we ask Lakeview."

Jared winced. "I guess they have the most people, yeah."

Tanya looked sharply at him. "You don't like that idea?"

He shrugged. "It makes sense. I don't think the commuters are any bigger than us, and Bernstein isn't that big of a dorm, and the frat is probably working their connections the same way we are."

"Hmm," she said again. "You know anyone over there?"

"Kind of." When she looked at him inquiringly, he went on, "I don't think he likes me very much, though. We, uh, had some run-ins yesterday trying to get some of the items downtown."

The low buzz of a toy motor caught their attention, and they looked over at the desk where Joe was working. "What are you doing?" Tanya asked.

"Ten points," Joe replied, sounding distracted. "A sexual device made from Legos, bonus points if it has a motor."

Jared felt his cheeks flaring red, and he whirled back around. "Well," was all Tanya said, but she did uncap her pen and cross a line off the list in her hand. "Six hundred eighty one."

"If I can get it to vibrate instead of just make a buzzing noise," Joe replied.

She rolled her eyes. "It doesn't say you have to demonstrate it, Joe, just that it has to have a motor." Turning back to Jared, whose face felt even hotter by now, she asked, "Do you know who their captain is?"

"I think his name is Ethan." Jared swallowed. "Their, uh, co-captain is Jensen Ackles. He's the one who doesn't like me."

"Ackles, huh? I've heard of him. You could always play up the competitive angle," Tanya said thoughtfully. She looked Jared up and down, and her face brightened. "Let's take a trip out to Lakeview Hall."

Even if he thought it would have been okay to say no to his editor, which he didn't, part of Jared wanted the opportunity to talk to Jensen again and convince him that he wasn't focused on Scav Hunt to the exclusion of everything else. Ironically, it looked like he was going to be doing it while trying to persuade him to join forces for the sake of winning. "My truck's on 57th," he said. "That'll be faster than walking."

Tanya patted his arm. "You keep being proactive like this, Jared, and you'll go far." She started to walk out, and Jared turned to follow her, pleased at the compliment.

"Hey, check it out!" Joe held up a bright red Lego phallus, bobbing mechanically up and down from the base he held in his hand. "Cool, huh?"

"Yeah," Jared choked out and headed for the door as fast as he could.

8:20 A.M.  
Lakeview Hall

"You'll never guess who's at the front de-esk," Nicole sing-songed as she walked into the headquarters room.

"The captain of Stewart Hall telling us they surrender?" Jensen asked hopefully, looking up from the origami crane he was folding. By his count it was going to be number six hundred, and then someone else could work on the damn things.

She shook her head. "Your little crush. Well, big crush, actually," she added, holding her hand up way over her head to indicate height.

"I don't have a crush on him," Jensen retorted, and then it sank in. "Wait, what's he doing here?"

"Dunno, but he's got his team captain with him, and they want to talk to you and Ethan. Where is he, anyway?"

"Up in his room, making phone calls." The phone line in the common room only dialed campus numbers, which meant someone's dorm room phone had to be used for long distance. "Can you go get him?"

She rolled her eyes but headed for the door. "Play nice, Jensen," she shot over her shoulder.

Jensen rose to his feet and shook out his hands, sore from folding up little squares of paper. It was eight on a Saturday morning, way too early to be wandering down the halls of Lakeview and looking for participants for tomorrow's activities. On the other hand, maybe talking people into participating in a drag queen race or a balloon toss where the balloons were filled with ketchup would be easier when they weren't entirely awake. He was also waiting on a phone call for both an x-ray of a lobster and a CAT scan of a cat. Having an older brother who was a doctor had to be good for something besides putting constant pressure on him to follow in his footsteps, at least if he could persuade Josh to take a quick image when no one was looking and send it overnight to him.

Jensen walked into the lobby and paused to look for his guests. Lakeview was an old, stately hotel overlooking Lake Michigan that had been converted into a dorm. The front lobby had soaring columns framing clusters of sofas and chairs that probably weren't as elegant as the hotel's had been, but still made for an impressive space. Ethan had wanted to take it all over for Scav Hunt, but Jensen had persuaded him that since not everyone living in the dorm was taking part, they might not appreciate the craziness spread out over the entranceway to their home. So they'd taken over the old ballroom that was mostly used for storage, tucked back out of the way so people could come and go at all hours of the night with all manner of weird shit.

Jensen had also reasoned that anyone could walk in off the street as far as the lobby and the front desk without having their ID checked. Seeing Jared and the woman next to him and the way they were looking around at their surroundings, Jensen was doubly glad he'd insisted their headquarters be farther back in the building.

"You wanted to see me?" he asked as he approached.

Jared gave a little jump and turned around. "Uh, yeah. Hi. Jensen, this is Tanya Rikovsky, news editor of the Maroon. Tanya, this is Jensen Ackles."

It occurred to Jensen to wonder how Jared knew his name, but he extended his hand and eyed the petite, dark-haired woman who was sizing him up at the same time. "Nice to meet you," she said as she shook his hand with a grip his father would have approved of.

"Same to you," he replied. "Are you out here doing a story?" he asked innocently.

"I'm the captain of our Scavenger Hunt team," she replied with a look that said, But you knew that. "Is yours here?"

"He's on his way down." Jensen gestured towards the nearest grouping of couches. "Why don't we have a seat?"

He couldn't help but notice how Jared was looking around the lobby, long neck craned to take in the high ceiling and the tall columns. "Nice place, isn't it?" he asked.

"Yeah, it is," Jared replied a little wistfully. "I live in Franklin, on 55th. The one designed by the same architect as the prison downtown."

Jensen chuckled. "That's not just an urban legend?"

"No, I looked it up." Jared's long legs folded up as he sat on one of the worn blue couches. "Do you live here?"

"I did for my first two years," Jensen replied as he sat in the armchair orthogonal to the couch. "It's kind of far from campus, though."

Jared nodded. "I really like being almost right on the quad. Especially coming back from the library late at night."

They fell into silence, and Jensen didn't know what to say. Small talk felt stupid, and he wasn't going to ask what they were doing here before Ethan arrived. Tanya looked composed sitting next to Jared with her hands in her lap, but Jensen could tell from the way she kept looking around that she was impatient. Jared's leg was bouncing up and down, but when he caught Jensen looking at him, he deliberately stopped, and Jensen had to hide a grin.

Finally, the elevator doors opened, and Ethan came out, scrubbing one hand over his face as he yawned. "Dudes, what's up?"

Tanya waited until he was closer before saying, "We have a proposition for you."

"Well, lay it on me," Ethan leered.

Jensen rolled his eyes. "Don't mind him, he hasn't been properly caffeinated yet."

Tanya ignored them both and asked, "You've heard about Stewart Hall?"

Jensen exchanged a glance with Ethan, who had come up next to his chair. "The points they're likely to get?"

"The damn elephant," Jared broke in. When all eyes turned to him, he sat back and looked like he was trying to shrink into the sofa cushions.

"This was your idea, Jared," Tanya said, turning to him with a half-smile. "Why don't you ask them?"

Suddenly Jensen knew what he was going to say. "You want to join forces."

Jared stared at him. "How'd you—" He shook his head and shifted forward in his seat. "Never mind. Look, it makes sense. Our team has some good connections from doing newspaper work to get some of the more obscure items, but there aren't that many of us. You guys are the biggest dorm on campus. You've got tons of people you can ask to do things. Put them together, and we have a chance."

"Who says we don't have a chance anyway?" Ethan asked sharply.

Jared spread his hands apart. "If you guys already have five hundred points you think Stewart Hall can't get, then fine. We've got maybe two-fifty from the really tough ones. We figure you probably have the same."

"So you don't care if it's not the Maroon that wins?" Jensen asked. "You just want to make sure it's not Stewart Hall."

"Don't you?" Jared asked. "Listen, I'm a first-year. I've got three more chances to do this. You guys are third-years, right?" When Jensen and Ethan nodded, he went on, "And Tanya's graduating. So it's pretty much now or never. I've only been doing this for forty-eight hours, and I know we haven't even gotten to the crazy part yet, but I don't want to give up. I don't think you do, either."

There was silence for a moment. Then Ethan folded his arms over his chest, looking surprisingly authoritative despite his grungy flannel shirt. "Are you willing to give up being captain?" he asked Tanya.

She huffed out a breath. "Yeah." Then she raised her eyebrows. "Are you?"

Jensen looked up at his friend. Ethan narrowed his eyes, staring Tanya down. Then he chuckled. "It's so not fun being in charge of all this shit. You can be the captain."

Jared sat up straight. "So you'll do it?"

"Yeah." Ethan looked down at Jensen. "You think everyone'll go for it?"

"Long as we win," Jensen returned. When he heard a snort from Jared, he looked over to see a resentful expression on his face, and it struck Jensen that he'd walked away from him the previous day for saying essentially the same thing. Clearing his throat, he stuck out his hand and gave Jared his best winning smile. "Teammates?"

It took a second, but the smile that grew across Jared's face could only be described as beaming. "Absolutely," he said, engulfing Jensen's hand in his and giving it a firm shake.

8:30 P.M.  
Maroon offices, Reynolds Club

Of course, it wasn't as easy as that. Jared regretted that he hadn't thought things ahead any further than "merge the teams", because by the time night fell, he had a headache the size of Chicago.

Tanya had argued that the Maroon offices made more sense for the joint headquarters because they were right on campus, a block from where all of the items had to be delivered Sunday morning, and because she had been declared the team captain. Ethan argued that Lakeview made more sense because it was removed from any prying eyes, which Tanya scoffed at until Ethan told her how he'd bugged the Stewart common room. He also said that since she was captain, the spirit of compromise required she cede to Lakeview on this one.

Jared had pulled out the copy of their List that he'd stuffed in his back pocket before leaving the office and asked Jensen, "Can we compare?"

They left Tanya and Ethan debating in the lobby and made their way back to another palatial room, strewn with some of the same items that Jared recognized from their own team. It took an hour of arguing with Jensen about which of the duplicate items should be used from the Maroon and which from the Lakeview team before they got that settled. Then there was another hour of discussion over who had the better chance of getting some of the remaining items and who should give up in the interests of using their time efficiently.

Jared could see why Jensen had a reputation for being difficult: he argued stridently, but also came up with logical reasons to back up his claims in a way that would infuriate anyone with a differing opinion. Jared was more on the emotional side, which in these particular circumstances did not put him in good stead. Jensen slowly wore him down to the point where Jared was wondering exactly what it was his half of the team was contributing, anyway.

When he blurted out that question, Jensen smirked at him in a way that Jared did not at all find hot. Really, he didn't. "I thought all you wanted was to win," Jensen said. "That's what you implied the other day."

Jared rolled his eyes, feeling a lingering twinge of guilt. "I’m sorry. I was just trying to lighten the mood. You ran off before I could explain."

"Ran off, huh?" Jensen quirked one eyebrow up, and it somehow made him even hotter in Jared's eyes. Then he let out a huff of breath. "It just—it seemed like a big deal to you, the blood donation thing, and then all of a sudden you were blowing it off like all that mattered was this stupid game."

"I know, and I'm sorry." Jared put a hand on Jensen's shoulder. "I really did appreciate you coming out after me like that. Seriously, thanks."

Jensen looked back at him for a moment before his features softened. "Forget about it," he said, reaching up to pat Jared's hand on his shoulder before stepping away. "Let's focus on the list."

By that time, Tanya and Ethan had come to a consensus that all of the items should remain where they were for now, that the Maroon offices made better headquarters for information gathering because of the outside phone lines and the better Internet connection, and that Lakeview would be the center for the more physical tasks like gathering one item starting with each letter of the alphabet.

Jared drove back to the center of campus with Tanya and spent twelve hours making phone calls, lining up people to do stupid things, and calling back and forth to Lakeview to make sure their lists were in sync. He completely forgot lunch and only remembered dinner because of the headache he'd developed from not eating. They ordered in pizza around nine, and he slumped down on the ratty old couch in the back of the office to wait for it, closing his eyes for just a second.

When Jared woke up, his watch read midnight, and he groaned. Fuck, why hadn't someone woken him up?

"Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty."

The rich voice was familiar, and he raised his head to see Jensen looking over from his seat in front of one of the office's computers. "What're you doin' here?" Jared demanded, or tried to, but from the sleepy tone in his voice and the way he was knuckling at his eyes, he thought he probably sounded more like a petulant child.

"Item one hundred eighty-two," Jensen replied, nodding at the computer screen.

Jared rolled off the couch and rose to his feet, stretching as high as the basement ceiling would allow him. When he looked at Jensen, he saw his eyes focused on the bare strip of skin above Jared's waistband. Jared self-consciously pulled his Smashing Pumpkins t-shirt back down. Jensen briefly met his eyes and then looked away before saying, "You comin' or what?"

Jared obediently came to stand behind Jensen, peering over his shoulder. "Wow. You made the team web page?"

"Netscape readable and everything," Jensen said proudly. "Even added a table for the links and some pictures of our team."

"How'd you get those up there so fast?" Jared squinted at the picture of Tanya and Ethan standing behind a pile of paper cranes with a date and time of about three hours ago in the lower right hand corner. "And are there really a thousand of them there?"

"Yeah, with twenty extra just to be safe. Christina has one of those new digital cameras that you can plug into a computer. I'd love one if they weren't so damn expensive." Jensen shrugged like it was no big deal to have photos that had only been taken a few hours ago up on a web page for anyone in the world to see.

"Neat." Jared scrubbed his hands over his eyes. "Damn, I didn't mean to sleep so long."

"You should probably go back to your dorm and sleep some more," Jensen said absently as he typed. "Tomorrow's gonna be a long day."

"No way. There must still be stuff to do." Jared looked around to see only a few other people in the office and a few pieces of cold, congealed cheese pizza in a grease-stained box. "Where's Tanya?"

"She and Ethan are going door to door in Lakeview recruiting people for the Scav Olympics." Jensen hit a couple of keys and the page refreshed to show "Maroonview" in flashing yellow letters across the top of the page with a vivid green background. "There we go."

Jared winced. "It's colorful," he said politely.

Jensen shot him a sideways glance. "You know any HTML?"

He shook his head. "But I play a mean game of Tetris."

"That's not on The List." Jensen turned back to the screen. "There is something you could do, though."

"What?" Jared asked, hoping he didn't sound overly eager.

"Get a fresh copy of the list and mark it "Judgment Day". Then find a pile of Post-Its and give them each a number, one through whatever the end of the list is."

Jared winced. There were nearly two hundred and fifty items on The List. "Then what?"

Jensen's fingers were flying over the keyboard. "There's one judge per page who goes around to each of the teams and judges all of the items on that page. When they show up, we gotta have everything in place to go or it doesn't count. We're going to need to record where everything is once we get to Ida Noyes Hall, which means everything needs a number on it before we carry it over so we can index it once we get there. Start with that and then we'll write in who's supposed to be doing things."

"Got it." Biting back a comment about how being anal-retentive could apparently sometimes be useful, Jared hunted around until he found a semi-clean copy of the list and ran it through the photocopier. "What about the ones that need both an object and a person to use it? Like the kiss under the mistletoe?"

"Find a different color of Post-Its," Jensen answered, the Duh! implicit in his voice.

"Okay." Jared hunted around in the drawers and came up with a blue and a yellow pad of sticky notes. Then he got to work.

It was one-thirty before Jensen was satisfied with the web page. It was one of the few items that had a wide range of points, from two to fifty-five, and he was determined to be at the upper end of that range. He could do more with it if he had more time, of course, but at this point, any extra effort wouldn't be worth what it would gain him. He leaned back in his chair and stretched his arms over his head, grunting in satisfaction at the stretch in his shoulders.

"You all right over there?" Jared asked. He was the only other person in the office, writing on a copy of The List in what looked like very small, very neat letters. Jensen wouldn’t have suspected someone who took up so much room would have such tiny handwriting.

"Yeah, just need to move around a bit." Jensen stood up, tilting his head back and forth to crack his neck. "Where'd everyone go?"

"Over to Lakeview to work on stuff." Jared looked back at the list and frowned. "Damn it, I forgot about that one!"

"What?"

Jared pointed to the page. "A trebuchet to launch a pineapple over the mounted knight statue on the Midway. I was thinking about it when we were running all over downtown the other day, but then I guess I kinda got distracted."

"Oh." Jensen frowned as he realized that the distraction was probably his fault. Had he apologized yet to Jared for failing to warn him about the overprotective priest? "Maybe we still have time, if you planned it out."

"Not sure my brain's working well enough to do the math at the moment." Jared smiled apologetically. "But I've got a couple of questions, if you know the answers." When Jensen merely raised his eyebrows in reply, Jared went on, "Okay, so, apparently we have a fetal pig on hand, and I do not want to know where that came from, but I do need to know where it is. And who's planning to dissect it in one minute or less?"

"Someone's cousin works at a scientific supply store, it's in the common room refrigerator in Hartshorne House at Lakeview, and that would be me."

Jared's jaw dropped. "For real?"

Giving a small shrug, Jensen said, "I'm a pre-med. Gotta get used to the idea."

"Yeah, I know. I mean, I guess so." Jared's cheeks colored slightly, and he turned back towards the list.

"What do you mean, you know?" Jensen would have considered it a slip of the tongue except that Jared looked embarrassed to know it.

"Oh, nothing. Just, I knew you were a pre-med. One of my friends mentioned it."

"Is it that Kevin guy you were hanging out with the other day?" Jensen had been worried that their paths were going to cross, but if Kevin was participating in the Scav Hunt for their merged team, he'd done it somewhere other than where Jensen had been all day.

"Yeah, he's my neighbor in Franklin Hall. He's the one who got me into the Maroon."

"Huh." Jensen watched as Jared finished writing down his name and then said, "I don't think he likes me very much."

If he hadn't been watching so closely, he wouldn't have seen the way Jared's mouth tightened. "I think maybe he has issues," was all he said.

Jensen considered his words for a moment and then went on, "I met him at this party last year. He thought he was being funny, hitting on this girl who wasn't interested in what he had to say. So I decided to do the same thing to him. Pissed him off, but at least he left the girl alone."

"That's what happened?" Jared asked, turning to face him.

Jensen's back went stiff. "Why, what did he tell you?"

"He said you were being a pain in the ass and wouldn't stop hitting on him," Jared replied. "He kinda left out the part about being a dick and deserving it."

Jensen barked out a laugh. "Who wouldn't, right?"

"I guess so." Jared fiddled with the hem of his sweatshirt. More quietly, he went on, "I just figured he didn't like gays."

Jensen suddenly remembered Jared's confession to him the day before, that he wasn't out at college, and it hurt a little to think that he hadn't even told a close friend. "Trust me, he has friends who swing our way."

"Yeah?" Jared looked up, a hopeful expression on his face that made Jensen want to scratch him behind the ears like a puppy.

"Yeah." When a smile curved up the corners of Jared's mouth and put those dimples in his cheeks again, Jensen asked softly, "His opinion matters a lot to you, huh?"

"What? Oh, yeah, I guess so. I mean, it would be nice to feel like I could tell him." Long fingers played at sweatshirt cuffs again as Jared went on, "And I guess I liked what you said about swinging our way. I don't—I might have been out at home, but I was the only one."

"Wow." Jensen blinked. Not that coming out in high school didn't take a lot of guts no matter what, but to do it on your own was huge. "We should talk later. You know, after this crazy weekend is over. I can introduce you to some friends of mine if you want."

"That'd be great," Jared replied shyly, and Jensen didn't know why the way he was looking up from under his bangs was making Jensen's heart skip a beat.

Then he remembered Nicole's words earlier about him having a crush, and he wanted to slap himself upside the head. That was something he seriously did not have time for. Certainly not this weekend, and not even once its craziness was over. He could see being friends with Jared, though, and he hoped that would work out. He seemed like a cool guy.

Jensen cleared his throat. "Anything else Kevin said about me?"

"Oh. Um." Jared's cheeks went a little pink. "I doubt it's true, given that he clearly exaggerates some things."

"No, it's okay. As long as we're clearing up misconceptions, you know." Jensen braced himself.

Jared bit his lip. "Well, he said he has friends who aren't going to get into med school because you always break the curve."

Jensen grimaced. God, he hated hearing that, especially behind his back. "If they can't keep up, it's their problem."

He expected to see Jared roll his eyes at the arrogance of the words, but instead, a small smile crept across his face. "Yeah, I know what you mean." Jensen cocked his head to the side in a silent question, and Jared went on a bit sheepishly, "I'm taking honors physics and I'm pretty much the only one acing every test, but it's not like I'm going to slow down or something, right? I mean, everyone here is smart, not like in high school, but I still get crap for doing great on a test."

"Story of my life," Jensen agreed. When Jared looked at him, he flushed. "Not that I'm, like, always the top of the class. In fact, physics is kind of kicking my ass."

"What does that mean, a B?" Jared teased.

"That's as good as an F for the top med schools," Jensen said tightly.

Instantly, Jared's face fell. "I'm sorry. It's like I'm not even paying attention to the conversation I'm having." Before Jensen could reply, he rushed on, "I could help you, if you wanted. With the physics. If you don't mind that I'm younger than you."

"Why would that matter?"

"Oh, you know. Some people have a problem doing things with someone who's a lot younger than them."

There was a pause. All Jensen had to do was raise one eyebrow, and Jared was ducking his head with an embarrassed grin. "You know what I mean," Jared muttered, fiddling with the cuff of his sweatshirt.

"Yeah, I do." Jensen took a deep breath. They were six weeks into the ten-week term, and he hadn't been able to admit to anyone that he needed some tutoring. This might be his last chance. "And yeah, that'd be cool."

"Awesome." Jared lifted his head and beamed at Jensen, and the flash of heat Jensen felt in response was totally unexpected.

To avoid dealing with it, he replied, "So once you're done there, what do you say we go over to Lakeview, rummage through the leftover shit in the maintenance room, and build ourselves a trebuchet?"

Jared's face lit up even more. "Seriously?"

"Yeah. You're a smart kid, I'll just give you some coffee and you can do your physics stuff and figure it out."

"'M not a kid," Jared muttered, but he looked pleased at the backhanded compliment, so Jensen smiled at him and tried to ignore the way his heart fluttered again as that dimpled smile came out.

He so did not have time for this.


	4. Judgment Day

Sunday, May 5, 1996  
9:45 A.M.  
Ida Noyes Hall

By the time the sun rose on Sunday morning, Jared was a bewildering mixture of tired, happy, frustrated, and nervous. The source of the exhaustion was obvious: other than his three-hour nap, he hadn't slept all night, and he wasn't sure that even coffee was going to get him through the day.

The happiness came from working with Jensen for about four hours putting together a shaky excuse for a trebuchet that might launch a pineapple as planned or might collapse under the strain of its own weight. Jensen had been really fun to work with, listening to what Jared had to say and offering suggestions but making it clear that Jared was the one with the knowledge of how tall the thing would have to be and how much force the device would have to employ in order to launch a pineapple over the statue on the Midway.

The way Jensen's eyes crinkled when he smiled and the whiff of spice and heat that Jared breathed in whenever he got close enough might have also contributed to that happy feeling, but it definitely fed his nerves as well. He pushed it down and concentrated on the trebuchet, not wanting to develop one of those awful crushes that made it impossible to be around a person for fear of stammering or tripping or otherwise making a fool of yourself. He might have only known Jensen a few days, and they might have started out on the wrong foot, but somehow they clicked now, and Jared would be ridiculously pleased to have him as a friend.

They made a trip out to the Midway at 3 A.M. to estimate how tall the statue on the horse was. "Thomas Masaryk," Jensen read off the plaque at the base. "First president of Czechoslovakia. What the hell is he doing out here?"

Jared shrugged and kept making notes. When they walked back to Lakeview, yawning in the chill night air, he was glad Jensen was there to keep him from wandering out in front of the few cars that were out in the dead of night, lost as he was in mental calculations.

They put together the best structure they could, enlisting a few night owls from the dorm to help lash wood together with duct tape for the frame. At about five in the morning, they figured there wasn't much point in assembling the contraption inside of Lakeview when it had to end up on the Midway anyway, so they used Jared's truck to lug the bits and pieces over to the wide grassy area around Masaryk's statue. There was another group of four there from the commuter student team, feverishly assembling something that looked much more well-built than Jared's piece of shit, and he stifled a frustrated groan. He didn't dare give it a trial run and risk it collapsing right then and there, so he crossed his fingers and hoped it would perform during the judging.

The next couple of hours were spent ferrying things back and forth between the dorm and the campus building where Judgment Day was being held. Jared remembered Kevin saying that he'd be a valuable member of the team because of his truck, and he was starting to realize how true that was.

At 9:45, everything was assembled in a corner of the ballroom in Ida Noyes Hall. Jared had assumed he would get some time to walk around and see what the other teams had come up with, but he was so busy helping Tanya and Ethan make sure that items on the same page were grouped together that he barely noticed when the first judge stepped up to their team at 10:05 and said, "Page three: let the judging begin!"

Page three had a lot of the road trip team's items. The Maroon contingent had arrived at ten last night, having skipped a few of the final items for the Lakeview group to pick up. They were positive they had everything from the road trip, from the words written on a sign in a museum in Baton Rouge to a ticket from the Kentucky Derby that had taken place on Saturday to a placemat from a specific barbecue joint in Memphis. Jared had the best memory for what the items looked like since he'd been the one running around putting damn Post-its on each one, so more often that not he was finding things for the judge.

A whoop from the opposite corner of the room caught his eye, and he looked up to see a guy with dreadlocks and a Bob Marley t-shirt stand up and stagger around, the rest of the Stewart Hall team applauding and cheering. The judge standing next to Jared, the petite redhead he remembered from when the lists were handed out, looked over and grinned wickedly. "That's Miryam's page," she said. "Must be the Sit n' Spin for three minutes. She's gonna see a lot of dizzy people today."

The first page went well; they got everything they expected to, and Jared and Tanya breathed a sigh of relief together. This might not be so bad.

The next judge who came by was page two, and that was more difficult. There were the twenty-six items, one for each letter of the alphabet, and that took a while to lay out and explain. When it came to the letter from a foreign embassy or consulate, Jensen proudly produced one faxed over from the Houston consulate of Bahrain.

"That's not your team name," the judge said. This was a guy in goth gear, decked out from the artificially black hair to the chain around his waist to the well-worn combat boots.

Jensen put his hands on his hips. "It says good luck to the Lakeview scavenger hunt team."

"But your official team name is Maroonview."

"That's because we merged teams after the letter was sent," Jensen explained with more than a hint of condescension.

Goth guy pursed his lips. "I can give you half the points."

"But we didn't—"

"Jensen, shut up," Ethan said. He smiled at the judge. "That would be great."

"Good." The judge made a note on his page. "One thousand origami cranes."

They were all in a box for transport, and there hadn't been space to lay them all out with the rest of their stuff. Still, the judge wasn't satisfied until he had counted a thousand paper cranes being moved from one box to another. Jared rolled his eyes at Jensen, who gave him a tight smile back. They were going to be here till midnight at this rate.

"All right, good." The judge looked up. "Item forty-one. Everybody kung-fu fighting."

There were a dozen members of the Maroonview team in their corner of the ballroom, and they all started making fake kung-fu poses and shouting "Hi-ya!" and making other sorts of noises that might or might not have had anything to do with actual martial arts. Jared felt ridiculous, but it was also kind of cathartic, karate chopping the air and pretending to give Kevin a roundhouse kick. When the judge signaled for them to stop, Jared was grinning as he caught Jensen's eye. Jensen gave him an eye-crinkling smile in return that made Jared wish he wasn't just a first-year who didn't really know anything about dating guys.

"An exorcism!" the judge announced.

They couldn't get the maximum points because they didn't get a real priest, but Jared thought the second-year Religious Studies majors they had put on a damn good performance. The guy pretending to be possessed spun around on the floor like a demented break-dancer while the one in a black robe chanted and waved a candle around. Other team members made sound effects and pretended to be demons in the background, and Jared had to bite his lip not to laugh. In the end, they got eleven points out of thirteen, which was more than he'd hoped for. Ethan jotted the number down on his own copy of the list and then turned to help the exorcist crew put themselves back together.

The judge turned to Jared. "Item forty-three. Someone being kissed under mistletoe."

"Oh!" Jared grabbed the dusty, plastic-wrapped sprig of mistletoe with "43" pinned to it that someone's grandmother had found in their attic and brought to Lakeview yesterday. "Um." He looked around and didn't see the two copy editors from the Maroon who were supposed to do the kissing for this part. Where the hell were those two?

"You can't kiss yourself," the judge said dryly. The light was flashing off the ring in his lower lip, and distracting as it was, Jared figured that kissing the judge probably wasn't a good idea.

"Here." Jensen's resigned voice came from behind him, and Jared whirled to see him standing right there. "Better make it good," he said in a low tone, and then he was putting a hand on Jared's chest and leaning up to kiss him.

Jared froze, one arm upraised with the sprig of mistletoe. He let out a little squeak at the amazing feel of Jensen's warm lips on his, afraid to move for fear that it would end, because it felt really goddamn fucking good.

Then he worried that the judge would say it didn't count if Jared wasn't kissing back, so he tilted his head and pressed his lips more closely to Jensen's. The low noise he heard coming from Jensen's throat was enough to make him break it off for fear of getting a boner in front of the judge and his team and—

And holy shit, he was kissing Jensen in front of their entire fucking team.

Jared broke off and stepped back, eyes wide and breath coming fast. Jensen's eyes were just as wide, gaze flicking to the side and then back to Jared in silent apology that they'd more than likely been seen by a whole bunch of people that Jared didn't want to know he was gay. Jared's crush grew a little more at the thought of Jensen looking out for him.

Jensen's shoulders straightened, and he gave Jared a strong clap on the shoulder. "You must make the girls real happy, Padalecki," he said loudly. Then he turned to the judge. "Full points, right?"

"Mm, and a bonus at the judge's discretion," he said with a wink of one mascara-lashed eye at Jared, and Jared wanted to sink into the floor and disappear.

Jensen found excuses to be busy for the next hour or so, always far enough away from Jared that no one would think anything of the kiss other than a stunt to get some points, but always within sight of Jared so he could see if he was freaking out or if anyone gave him crap about it. But Jared seemed fine, and no one was bothering him, so Jensen eventually felt the tension in his shoulders release. Looked like he hadn't screwed things up too badly for the kid.

He wondered how he could still think of Jared as a kid when he couldn't stop thinking about the kiss, about how he could still feel a surprisingly solid chest under his hand and the phantom trace of warm lips over his, but that was not something to focus on right now. Right now, all that mattered was getting through eight more pages of the list and getting more points than Stewart Hall. That was all Jensen was going to think about.

The page they had just started judging was the one with a hundred dandelions. Someone had plucked them off the Midway at nine this morning when Tanya realized no one had bothered to collect what should have been an easy twelve points. Jensen figured that rather than stand around and get nervous as the judge went down the page, he could make himself useful by organizing the flowers into ten groups of ten.

He was about halfway through when Nicole came up next to him. "Good job with the mistletoe," she murmured.

"Shut up," he returned. "The judge was getting impatient; what else was I supposed to do?"

"Nice story," she replied with a wink. When he glared at her, she held her hands up. "Hey, I thought it was cute, and the judge sure liked it."

"Doesn't matter," Jensen replied, straightening his dandelion piles. "It was just for the points."

"You keep telling yourself that," Nicole said with a hand on his arm. "Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go drink a quart of espresso."

"You are going to stick your finger down your throat afterwards, right? Because that much caffeine can screw with your heart if your body actually absorbs it all."

"Yes, Dr. Ackles." Nicole patted his cheek and turned away.

Jensen sighed and went back to his dandelions. He looked up a second later, feeling someone's eyes on him, and saw Jared across the room. When Jared saw him watching, he quickly looked away.

Suddenly, Jared's cheeks flared red, and he wheeled around. Alarmed, Jensen turned to see what Jared had been looking at, and he barely managed to stifle a guffaw. Not only was the sexual device made of Legos operating like it was supposed to, but Bondage Barbie and Ken were on the same judge's page. Jensen smirked at Jared's broad back, making a mental note to tease him about his apparent prudishness later.

It seemed like no time had passed, but it was already one in the afternoon when they headed outdoors. Some of the pages had items that could only be judged outside, like the trebuchet, and that was where they were headed now. Jared had gone on ahead with his friend Kevin to make sure the thing was set up properly, and Jensen was following when he suddenly realized they didn't have the pineapple.

He ran back inside to get it, dodging what had to be the drag race, wondering which one of their team members was stumbling down the Midway in four-inch heels and a dress. He hoped it wasn't the one who tripped and fell a yard short of the finish line. Then Jensen recognized the red-headed Keith charging down the grass in a Catholic schoolgirl outfit, and he choked on a laugh.

Inside the ballroom, Jensen grabbed the pineapple and headed back, approaching the statue from the opposite side of where the Maroonview trebuchet was standing. He was about to call out to Jared to say he'd brought the pineapple when he heard his name, and he stopped in his tracks and stayed behind the solid granite base of the statue.

When he peered around the corner, he saw Jared and Kevin standing near the front of the trebuchet. Jared was fiddling with the counterweight, and as Jensen listened, he heard Jared ask hesitantly, "Me and Ackles what?"

"I didn't know you were into guys, that's all," Kevin replied. Jensen couldn't read his tone, and he found himself clenching his fists, ready to tear around the corner and defend Jared if his friend turned out to be an asshole.

"Yeah. Um." Jared lowered his head, his attention apparently all on the counterweight. "It was just for the points, Kevin. That's all."

Jensen bit his lip. He had been expecting to hear something like that, but he was surprised at how much it hurt. He'd started out a few days ago considering the kid from the Maroon as just that, a kid. But as he'd gotten to know Jared, he realized that he might be a few years younger than Jensen, but he was smart and funny and willing to stand up for himself, and actually more than a little hot.

Then there was the fact that Jensen couldn't stop thinking about their kiss, brief and public and staged though it had been. If Jared could light up a fire inside of him like that without even trying, Jensen shuddered to think of the kind of reaction he could provoke if he was really into it. But it sounded like to Jared, all it had been was one more item on The List.

"Oh," Kevin was saying. There was a pause, and then he went on, "Well, it'd be okay if you were. Into guys, I mean. You know that, right?"

Jensen heard a quick intake of breath. There was another pause, and then Jared spoke more firmly. "No, actually. I don't know that."

Good boy, Jensen thought.

"What do you mean?" Kevin asked, and this time he was the one who sounded hesitant. "You know I'm your friend, right?"

There was a clunk, and Jensen pictured Jared letting go of the counterweight so the long axis of the machine thunked to the ground. "I mean the way you talk about him, Kevin. The way you talk about gay people. It's not respectful."

"Like what?" Kevin pressed.

Jensen heard another whoosh of breath from Jared. When he spoke again, his voice was lower, and Jensen had to strain to hear the words. "The other day you called him a cocksucker."

What the fuck? Jensen had started to take a step forward to confront the dirtbag before he realized he really wanted to hear his response.

As soon as Kevin said, "That's just a word, Jared. Everyone uses it," Jensen was rolling his eyes.

"It's not just a word." There was a pause, and then Jared went on, "Look, you might not get this, Kevin, but everyone I ever meet in my entire life, I have to decide if I want to…" He trailed off and then heaved in a breath. "To come out to them. And when someone uses words like that, I figure they're not going to want to be around me if they know."

Silence fell, broken only by excited shouts coming from somewhere else on the Midway. Then there was a loud trumpeting sound that had to be Stewart Hall's elephant, jarringly out of tune with the urban landscape around them. Jensen's head whipped up, and a few blocks down the greenway, he saw a huge grey body and the curve of a trunk arching up towards the sky.

"Well, I'll be damned," Kevin said. "They actually did it." He paused and then added, "Fuckers."

Jared gave a chuckle, and silence fell again. Jensen watched from a distance as the elephant was herded back into the cage parked on the flatbed of a truck. He wondered if he should make his presence known and give Kevin a piece of his mind.

Then Kevin cleared his throat. "I never thought of it like that, man. I'm sorry."

"'S okay." Jared was way too forgiving, Jensen thought. But hey, it was one of the things he liked about the kid.

"Can I ask you something?" Kevin started hesitantly.

Oh, great, Jensen thought. Here comes the question about whether Jared's ever looked at him like that.

"Uh, yeah. I guess." Jared sounded wary, and Jensen could hardly blame him.

Kevin had apparently picked up on it, too, because he started, "It's not, like, personal. Well, kind of. Just—how many people know? I mean, have you come out to a lot of people here?"

Jared's voice dropped. "No. Just you and Jensen."

"Oh." Another pause, and Kevin said, "Well, thanks. For telling me. I get that it's a really big deal."

"Yeah, it is." Jared took in a huge breath. "I mean, people at home know, but I'd thought I'd kind of feel things out here first, you know?"

"Yeah, I get it." Kevin paused. "So really, you and Jensen aren't…?"

"I wish!" Jared blurted out, and Jensen's heart started pounding faster. "I mean, he's, you know, kinda hot and it turns out he's a great guy. But there's no way he'd be interested in me."

"I don't know, man. I thought I saw him checking you out this morning."

Jensen blinked. He'd been watching Jared a lot today, sure, but he didn't think anyone else would have noticed. The guy was so tall and goofy that he was liable to be the center of attention no matter where he was, which no doubt explained why Jensen couldn't keep his eyes off of him.

"Don't be stupid," Jared said, but Jensen could hear the undercurrent of hope in his voice, and it sent a thrill through him.

"I’m serious. You think he just happened to be hovering around you when the mistletoe item came up? He probably knew right where it was on the list and was waiting to take advantage of you."

Jensen opened his mouth to protest, then shut it again. Had he been watching for the right moment? He didn't think so. He certainly hadn't deliberately used it as an excuse to make a move on Jared. He was really, really glad that he had, but it wasn't a secret plot or something, unless it was on the part of his subconscious.

"Give me a break." Jensen heard a soft oof and figured Jared had given his friend a punch or something. "It's good to know you can still give me shit."

"Wouldn't have it any other way," Kevin replied warmly, and Jensen felt a small knot of nervousness loosen in his stomach. At least Jared had his closest friend at his side if he decided to come out to more than a handful of people.

Enough was enough. "Hey, guys," Jensen said loudly as he rounded the corner. "I got your pineapple right here."

Jared beamed when he saw him, and Jensen felt that funny little flutter again, especially when he thought of what Jared had just said. Maybe once this was over, they'd have some time to talk, since his earlier resolve not to get involved seemed to be crumbling by the hour.

"C'mon, man," Jensen said with a squeeze of Jared's shoulder as he held out the pineapple. "Show us how much you rock at physics."

"If this thing holds," Kevin replied, prodding the base of the trebuchet with his foot.

"It'll hold," Jensen said confidently. "Jared knows what he's doing."

Kevin looked at him suspiciously, and Jensen looked right back at him. Kevin was the first to look away, but not before the corner of his mouth quirked up. "He's all yours," Kevin said, and if Jared hadn't been so busy putting the pineapple in place in the sling on the other side of the trebuchet, he might have noticed Jensen's face go completely pink before he turned away.

5:35 P.M.  
57th and Kimbark

"So was it all worth it?"

Jared contemplated the question. He was walking down 57th Street on his way to return one of the items they'd borrowed, tired and sweaty and not at all happy. Jensen was beside him, having offered to accompany him since his apartment was near Jared's destination, and Jared appreciated the company to keep him from dissolving into the funk he was likely to be in otherwise.

He thought about the last three days and all of the effort he'd put into it, all the frustration and panic and stress, and how it had all turned out, and he answered with surprise in his voice, "Not really, no."

Jensen snorted. "I coulda told you that three days ago. And watch that thing, would you?"

Jared shifted the sword he was carrying to his other hand. One of the items on the list had been a quickening, Highlander style, and one of Kevin's friends who did Ren Faire stuff let them borrow the broadsword as long as they promised to return it immediately after Scav Hunt was over. So even though Jared wanted nothing more than to sleep into next week, he was trudging through the streets of Chicago with a heavy sword in his hand.

Which was actually pretty cool, come to think of it.

"Then why'd you do it?" he asked Jensen.

"Ethan asked me." Jensen gave a longsuffering sigh. "He would have bitched about it until I gave in, so I figured saying yes sooner than later would save me the maximum aggravation."

Jared smiled, hearing the fond familiarity under Jensen's wry tone. "You guys are pretty close, huh?"

"You wouldn't think it, right? I mean, he looks like Mr. Free Spirit, and I’m pretty much Mr. Uptight Pre-Med."

Jared snorted. "You're not that uptight." Somehow he didn't think he'd ever forget the image of Jensen whooping and pumping his fist in triumph as their pineapple soared over the stone statue.

"Come find me during finals week and you'll see otherwise," Jensen returned. They walked on for a few steps, and then he added, "Besides, I thought it would have some fun moments."

"You thought you were going to beat Stewart Hall," Jared returned.

"At least someone beat them," Jensen sighed. He shook his head. "Man, I told Nicole we needed to watch out for the dark horse. No one thought the commuters could do it. There's, what, like a hundred of them in the whole college?"

"Couple hundred total, but I don't think they all participated." Jared shifted his grip on the broadsword. It was pretty heavy, and he was already getting odd looks from passersby for carrying it at his side; he didn't want to know what would happen if he brought it up and rested it on his shoulder. "It makes sense, though. I mean, we've got students from all over the country, so for a lot of stuff we might know someone who has it, but they couldn’t get it here in time. All of their contacts were within the city, since they all live at home."

"And fucking UPS doesn't deliver on Sundays," Jensen grumbled. "What the hell am I going to do with an x-ray of a lobster when it arrives tomorrow?"

For some reason, that struck Jared as hilarious, and he burst out laughing in the middle of the street they were crossing, some part of him vaguely aware that he wouldn't be finding it so funny if he wasn’t so tired. When the sword sagged in his hand and clanked against the ground, he remembered where he was and lifted it back up. "Hang it on your wall? I don't know."

Jensen shook his head. "You doin' okay with that thing?"

"Yeah," Jared replied. He checked to make sure there were no pedestrians in the immediate vicinity and then brought up the sword and gave it an experimental flourish, feeling a moment of invigoration. It was heavy enough to overbalance him, and tired as he was, it took a few staggering steps forward and a hand against a nearby tree to keep him from faceplanting.

"Yeah, you're doing great," Jensen dryly replied.

Jared snickered. "This might be the most fun I've had all weekend." He raised the sword over his head and uttered, "There can be only one!"

"Put that down," Jensen ordered, grabbing his arm and pulling at it. "Scav Hunt is over and you need to act like a normal person now."

"This is the U of C, they don't let you in if you're normal," Jared quickly replied. But he lowered the sword. "Seriously, though, how often do you get to walk through Hyde Park carrying a fucking sword? This is so cool."

"Some people are easily amused," Jensen muttered, but Jared only snickered again. "How much farther are we going, anyway?"

"Uh, something and Blackstone." Jared fished a piece of paper out of his pocket with the address. "5749 South Blackstone. Is that close to where you live?"

"Um, kind of." Jensen rubbed at the back of his neck. "I’m back on Kimbark."

Jared frowned. That was, like, three blocks back. "Did you miss your turn or something?"

"Eh, I wanted to make sure you weren't going to accidentally run someone through with that sword," Jensen returned.

Jared hid a smile. There was something to Jensen's tone that suggested something else was going on, like maybe he was walking with Jared because he wanted to. The thought made a tingle run down his spine and apparently gave him a shot of courage. "You, uh, want to grab something to eat after I drop this off? At the Med?"

"I was planning on going home and seeing if I could stay awake long enough for a pizza to be delivered," Jensen yawned.

"Oh." Jared's face fell, and the sword in his hand drooped. "Yeah, I totally understand that."

"You could come along, though." Jensen looked sideways at him. "I mean, it's a long walk back to Franklin Hall."

Jared was about to say that it was all of four blocks past Jensen's street when he realized what had just happened. Jensen had invited him over to his place. His place where he lived by himself and wanted Jared to visit, and where they would likely both pass out from exhaustion before a repeat of that mistletoe-induced kiss could happen, but there was no way he was passing this up. He tried to sound casual as he said, "Yeah, sure, that'd be great," but from the crinkling at the corners of Jensen's eyes, he figured he'd missed casual by a mile.

Somehow, he didn't care.

By the time the pizza arrived, Jared was sound asleep on Jensen's couch. He looked like someone had tossed him there, limbs sprawled akimbo and head tilted back, mouth open but not snoring. Considering they'd never met as of four days ago and that they'd been at each other's throats for half the time in between, the sudden urge of protectiveness that swept through Jensen struck him as more than a little odd.

Jensen was torn over whether to wake the kid or not. He knew how exhausted he was himself and figured Jared must be the same. On the other hand, Jared was probably faint with hunger considering how much energy it must take to power that big body, and Jensen was already starving.

He compromised by not bothering to keep quiet as he set out plates and glasses. When he looked back at the couch, Jared hadn't budged. Lips parted and legs sprawled wide, he made an odd mixture of cute and sexy that had Jensen moving over to stand in front of him. Finally, he decided that food was more important than sleep, and he dropped to one knee on the couch to murmur in Jared's ear, "Wake up, Sleeping Beauty."

A moment passed. Then Jared muttered, "Gotta kiss me first," and Jensen almost jumped in surprise.

He drew back to look, but Jared's eyes were still closed. Something warm unfurled in Jensen's chest at the thought that Jared wanted to repeat their earlier kiss, the one he'd been thinking about all afternoon, and he leaned forward to press a soft kiss to Jared's parted lips.

He couldn't stop at just one, not when Jared's mouth was so warm and soft and starting to move back against Jensen's own. He brought up one hand to cup Jared's jaw and help keep his balance as he perched on the couch, leaning more into the kiss and taking Jared's lower lip between both of his.

Jared made a little noise that had the warmth in Jensen's chest blazing into full-fledged heat, and Jensen started to run his tongue along the bow of Jared's upper lip. Jared leaned up against him, seemingly seeking more, and Jensen firmed the kiss before pulling back, wanting to look into those blue-green eyes this time without fear of their teammates watching them.

Jared's eyes were still closed, mouth widening in a smile that dimpled his cheeks adorably. "Mmm," he said, and then opened his eyes. When he saw Jensen's face so close, he looked confused, and then his eyes widened. "Oh, God," he muttered. "I thought that was a dream."

"No, it wasn't," Jensen replied and then hesitated, his stomach sinking. "Did you want it to be?"

"It was a nice dream," Jared said shyly. His hand hesitantly came up to touch the side of Jensen's face, fingers sliding into his short hair. "It'd be even better in reality."

Jensen turned his head into the touch, feeling a smile spreading across his face, quashing the ridiculous urge to purr. Jared smiled back, his palm warm on Jensen's cheek, sending a shiver down his spine. "Why'd you kiss me?" Jared asked quietly.

He was getting tired of leaning over Jared with all of his weight on one knee, so he moved onto the couch next to him, careful to move slowly so he didn't dislodge Jared's hand from its very welcome location. "You asked me to," Jensen said simply.

Jared's eyes widened. "Wow," was all he said. Then his expression turned a little more mischievous. "Kiss me again."

Jensen grinned. "You think I'm that easy, huh?" At Jared's quick nod, he let out a laugh. Then he added, "Lucky for you, maybe I am."

When he leaned forward, Jared met him halfway, more enthusiastically than he had before. It was a little sloppy, a little rushed, but Jensen tried to slow it down, moving his mouth slowly and deliberately against Jared's. He shifted sideways so his neck wouldn't get a crick, all the while tasting and teasing and getting to know Jared in a whole different way than their conversation early this morning.

Jared went along with it, cradling Jensen's head in his big hands but letting Jensen direct the kiss. It was warm and sweet and more than a little exciting, and God, Jensen hoped he was going to get to do a lot more of this as his earlier resolution not to admit that he had a crush on this guy went right out the window.

When Jensen finally drew back, Jared's eyes darted down to his lips, and then he let out a little groan and dove at Jensen again. Jensen smiled against his mouth, happy to let Jared have his way with him, at least for the moment. Finally, though, he put his hand on Jared's chest and gently pushed. "Hey," he said softly.

"Sorry," Jared said quickly. "I just—you look so hot."

Jensen gave a self-conscious laugh and looked down, seeing the pink flush of Jared's mouth and still feeling the almost bruising pressure of it against his. "Look who's talking," he said, chucking Jared under the chin.

"'M not hot," Jared insisted, pulling slightly away.

"Don't you think you should let the guy who's kissing you be the judge of that?" Jensen asked softly.

Jared flushed. "I don't—I've only ever been with one guy, you know. I'm not good at this kind of stuff."

"If you mean the kissing, you're dead wrong," Jensen replied. It might not have been super experienced, but it still had the power to rock Jensen's world, and that was something he did not expect, even after The Mistletoe Incident.

"Really?" When Jensen nodded, Jared bit his lower lip, drawing Jensen's eyes to the motion. Then that mischievous glint came into his eyes again. "But I could always use some more practice."

The thrill of anticipation lit up Jensen's nerves as he leaned forward. Their lips barely touched when Jared's stomach rumbled so loudly that Jensen couldn't help the laugh that burst out. "I’m sorry," he said, leaning his forehead on Jared's shoulder. "There is pizza, by the way. Before you die of hunger."

"Yeah, I smelled it," Jared said, looking sheepish. "Usually food comes before anything else, but, you know." He shrugged and gave Jensen a peck on the lips.

"Should I be flattered that you're putting me before food?" Jensen teased. His earlier exhaustion had somehow been swept away by kissing Jared, and he felt more alert than he had all weekend. Maybe it was the unexpected swell of happiness rising up in him, pushing aside the tiredness that had been lurking all day.

"I'm sure it's just temporary," Jared shot back. The his stomach growled again, and he put a protective hand over it.

Jensen grinned. "Maybe I should feed you before you're too weak to move."

"Don' wanna move," Jared pouted.

"Too bad," Jensen said, rising to his feet and holding out both hands. When Jared took them, he pulled him to his feet, grunting when their chests smacked together. "Oof."

Then Jared's arms were around him, his shoulder almost in Jensen's face, and Jensen felt positively enveloped. He'd never been with someone so much taller than him, and it felt weird. Good weird, though, and he wondered how long it would take him to get used to it.

"Mmm, you're nice 'n tall," Jared said, nuzzling against his cheek. "Good for kissin'."

Jensen patted his back in response. "Dude, you are so tired you sound wasted."

"Feel like it," Jared replied. Then he stepped back and shook himself like a wet dog. "Okay, feed me. Please."

"Feed yourself," Jensen said, gesturing to the table.

Jared was still looking at him, and he shyly reached out and touched Jensen's hand before moving away. "For the record, I think this weekend was totally worth it."

Jensen watched him moving towards the kitchen and grinned. There was no way he was going to argue with that.


End file.
